Rest
by FanficWriterBot
Summary: For as long as he can remember, death has always been part of his identity. He hated that part, but he couldn't seem to get away from it. When an invitation came from Beacon, he thought finally maybe he could take a stab at living. But the world right now is not kind, he knows. There are forces at work, and his rest will have to be earned.
1. Trailer

Trailer: Yestausruhen

He cuts through three Beowolves with a single swing.

Leaning in the opposite direction to counteract the sword's weight, he pushes on the hilt to turn the weapon into a vertical slash, his wrists strain a little at the effort. The giant blade hisses through the air, crashing right into a charging Alpha Beowolf's head, blowing through the monster's bone facemask, burying halfway into its skull before pushing the wolf Grimm headfirst down to the ground. He boots the Alpha shoulder to yank the sword out by the hilt, then pushes the tip into the ground and turn the blade's flat towards a large oncoming Boarbatusk. The ball of rolling flesh runs onto the blade and is midway up the makeshift ramp when he lifts his sword and directs the Grimm to crash into an Ursa moments away from swiping his torso. He leans back to dodge a Nuckelavee claw but got his head jerked violently to the side as the claw glances off his mask. A human size Beowolf manages to jump onto his shoulder and goes for his throat, but is thrown off when he makes a dive roll onto said shoulder towards the downed Ursa, narrowly dodging four more Beowolves jumping him. He uses the momentum of the roll to swing the blade downwards across the Ursa chest just as it is trying to get up; the sword bites deep into the monster's torso and drives it back onto the snow, sending up white cloud of frost. He turns to deliver a hard kick to the Boarbatusk shoulder, knocking it on its side, smoothly falling into a wide stance to swing his sword in a big arc and force the four Beowolves back. Following the arc, he pivots on his right foot and throws the sword at the horse body of the Nuckelavee, who has just taken a deep breath and is about to let out a sonic roar.

The slab of metal flies silently but hits loudly with a heavy 'THUMP', accompanied by cracking sounds of bones breaking. The horse body lurches roughly along with the sword and falls down on its side. The sonic roar contorts in to a piercing scream of anguish. Meanwhile he drives a knee into the Boarbatusk's ribs, grabs its overgrown tusks and promptly snaps its neck. He turns to the growling Beowolves, they are more cautious now, and makes his way towards them, stomping the head of the crawling Beowolf he rolled onto earlier on the way. He recalls his sword to his right hand, earning another pained shriek from the Nuckelavee, and strikes the greatsword against the snow to kill the momentum. Still, the impact sends little rattles up his arm. He holds the sword in both hands, winds the blade back, crouches down and is just starting to build up his charge when he has to abruptly brakes and holds up his swords, blade falling along his side to block a Beringel's shoulder check. It was inside one of the house and apparently decided to make a surprise entrance through the wall.

His flight is stopped by a streetlight. The force isn't enough to bend the pole but is enough to knock the air out of him and bruised his back, and he knows his arm and thigh are also bruised from blocking the blow. The Grimm didn't waste the opportunity. The Beowolves reach him first and lunge at him. He forces himself to breathe and lets one bite into his left gauntlet, punches another in the chest with the same arm, slams the first one into the lamp post, denting it while in the same motion swings his sword to cut through the remaining two with his right arm. He catches the sword's hilt near the pommel and rotates it horizontally to level it at shoulder height, leaning forward and keeping the blade tip aligned with the charging Beringel's neck, who has enough reflex to steer to the side to avoid getting impaled. He spins his sword over his head to wind up a decapitation for the unbalanced gorilla Grimm when the Nuckelavee claws plunge into his shoulder and abdomen, instantly dying the claws red. The wounds are not fatal but they're deep enough. That doesn't stop the motion, though. As soon as he feels the edge of the blade reach the end of the gorilla Grimm's neck, he lets go of the sword and grabs the man-horse Grimm arms. The Grimm tries to pull back, but it is not in a good position to exert force, lying on its side. He steps onto one arm and pulls out his knife, then pins both hands into the ground with said knife. He turns to stomp the first Beowolf's head into the streetlight, this time bending the post. Fortunately, the other Beowolf he punched earlier fell into the Beringel's rushing path and was swiftly crushed by its supposed ally. Only the Nuckelavee now. He walks over to get his sword to finish the fight.

When the grimm's scream is cut short, howling winds takes the main stage. There's no sound of people in this settlement, not anymore.

The Grimms have mostly faded away; now, there's only a white blanket of snow blotched with stains of blood, his blood, remaining; glowing red in the silver moonlight. But that too would be covered up shortly by the blizzard arriving in a few minutes. He'll need to disinfect his wounds, they are already a little frostnipped, and move on. His job isn't finish, he will not have his rest yet.

Not for a while.

 **So I decided to add a trailer because I need some practice with combat scenes. It turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. For the new readers, welcome! It's a bit backwards but this trailer is written after about 7 chapters into the story, so the welcoming and introduction note is in the next chapter. For those who is following my story, this is something for you to read while waiting for me to write the next chapter.**

 **Read and review!**


	2. Prologue 1

**Author Note:**

 **Hello and thank you for reading my story.**

 **Lately I've luckily been in a position where I have a lot of free time. So with boredom to spares I decided to try the RWBY series and I must say I was quite pleasantly surprised. Monty Oum was truly a great loss.**

 **You know how every time you experience a good story you have little ideas about an OC character living the story's universe? Like Dark Souls greatswords are so cool that you imagine a character wielding a Lothric Greatsword busting up Lords and monsters, or Shinji Ikari is such a weak ass pussy boy and Asuka deserves better that you imagine a badass Shinji who spits out sass with Gendo, beating up angels while exchanging quips with Misato. Well the OC in this story is the accumulation of the stories I've experienced and I just have to bring him to life as he would not settle in my imagination anymore.**

 **I have thought up the plot up until the end of First year of RWBY, further than that I got nothing. However, I do want to see my story to the end so I'm very open to ideas. But Second Year is not coming anytime soon, we are in for the long haul ladies and gentlemen. Look at this Prolouge, it's so long that I had to break it into three parts, truly the story writes itself.**

 **A few more things before we start, first of all I do not own RWBY, it's belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth studio. Second, I would very much appreciate reviews and maybe beta readers? This is my first fic and I'm sure there are rooms for improvement.**

 **Finally, the most important part: the pairings (I'm quite a romantic at heart). PN x JA because she deserves it, NV x LR was never a doubt, other cast pairings will be revealed in time. It will either RR x OC or YXL x OC, let's see how they interact when they meet. As a matter of fact, I'm actually leaning on an OC x RR x YXL. I don't like harem; actively dislike it in fact. But for this pairing I have very good reasons; and I really like the notion of siblings with different surnames occurring again in the Rose/Xiao Long household.**

 **Thank you.**

Prologue 1:

As soon as they enter the bar, Mors knows these people are here for him.

Grey hair, green turtleneck, black suit, walks with a cane, weird sunglasses locking firmly onto the back of his head. Blonde hair, purple cape…cape?, pencil skirt, white dress shirt with very choice cut around the chest, normal glasses wandering around the bar a bit before settling on Tsvetok resting against the counter next to him. The lady looks like she can use a hot bath, some massaging and a good night sleep.

So a pimp and his working woman? That doesn't explain the riding crop though.

….Or does it? Maybe she's his bottom girl.

Probably the better question would be what do they want with him. It would have to be a pretty big reason for them to come all the way here. So either a big fight or a big gig.

Well, whatever it is he should probably finish his stuff just in case. Leaving your drink half-drunk is probably rude to the bartender, not to mention wasteful.

Mors downs the rest of his glass, wince at the burn in his throat, put on his "maybe friendly, maybe intimidation" grin and turn to the two strangers as they come in about 2 meters from his stool:

"Good evening sir and uh.. ma'am, I can see that you have business with me. Would that business involve us inflicting bodily harm on each other?"

Miss Cape was a bit startled when he turned around, Mr. Turtleneck merely raise an eyebrow:

"I do hope that is not the case Mr. Mertvetsov."

Huh, neat.

"Please, call me Mors, or maybe Mr. Morskoy if we need to be professional and stuff. But seriously though, please refrain from using my last name, I kinda dislike it. I mean, I guess I wouldn't be really upset if you insist on using it, but if we're not hostile why go out of our way and be assholes to each other you know?"

It seems all of the tension in Miss Cape are now replaced by confusion; and a bit of distaste if her frown is of any indication. He's being pretty friendly he thinks? Ah well just roll with it. Both of Mr. Turtleneck's eyebrows are raised now, he looks quite amused:

"Very well, Mr. Morskoy. Now, perhaps a little introduction from us to be fair to you hmm? My name is Ozpin, I am the headmaster of Beacon Academy in Vale, you have heard of Beacon yes?"

"Ohh...headmaster…hmm… _head_ master?…but it's Beacon." It's probably not a street title "It's where the little huntsmen and huntresses go to get training in Vale right? I have heard of Beacon. Though I haven't heard of you, headmaster Ozpin, uh.. I apologize."

"It is of no concerns. Although it's a bit strange to call your peer 'little'. Anyhow, this is Professor Glynda Goodwitch, she is one of Beacon faculty and my assistant."

"A pleasure to meet you Professor Goodwitch" Mors says dipping his head at the professor, then as he remembers he turns to the headmaster and repeat the motion, to which he receives a smile and nod in return.

"Likewise, Mr. Morskoy." Miss Goodwitch replies.

The professor looks more at ease now.

A professor and a headmaster, at Beacon no less, and they probably need him for something… this could be his chance, a foot in the door so to speak.

"Soooo, before we go any further would you two like to sit down and order some drinks? It's rather cold and I wouldn't mind another round. Mr. Ivan has quite an exquisite collection of Votca. It will warm you right up." Mors pause a bit "Neither of you are going to drive, ride or fly after this right?"

The frown finds its way back on Professor Goodwitch's face, though this one seems more out of concerns. Ozpin breath out a chuckle.

"Yes, Mr. Morskoy, we do have someone to take care of our transportation. However, I believe I'm also speaking for companion here when I say we would like to stay sober by the end of the night. That said, a few drinks are quite alright, Glynda?"

"…I suppose there is no problem with one drink or two."

"Excellent!" Mors called the bartender over as the professors settle down on the stools next to him 'So..Votca?" a nod "Votca?" another nod "Okay. Mr. Ivan, the last one for me, a straight up shot of Votca for each of these two, after that Votca Bartini for the gentleman and White Rushan for the lady, please. On me."

The bartender snorts

"Heretics bunch, all of you, mixing the holy Votca.." Mors shrugs and shoots him an apologetic smile "Alright, the two shots are up in a second. The Votca Bartini, White Rushan and hot chocolate, give me fifteen minutes."

 **Notes:**

 **If you haven't noticed, Mors has a bit of a Russian origins.**

 **His name in actual Russian is морской мертвецов, there is a backstory to this name.**

 **Tsvetok (цветок) means Blossom.**

 **Reviews are appreciated.**


	3. Prologue 2

Prologue 2:

Glynda Goodwitch doesn't know how she feel about the boy.

It was a three months ago when he came up in a conversation with Ozpin and Ironwood. The Fall Maiden situation had just occurred, it was quite clear that the opposing forces were starting to make significant maneuvers. There was no doubt the enemy would try to finish their work and everyone agreed that the Vytal Festival in the coming year is when Beacon most vulnerable. Ironwood offers his military to bolster Beacon defense and while adamant about it, Ozpin could not deny the benefits of the offer nor their needs for fighting bodies.

As a passing comment Ozpin mused about the possibility of hiring mercenaries when Ironwood was reminded of a report just 2 weeks prior about a mercenary single-handedly clear out an overran settlement in Solitas.

Maxcova is a major dust mining settlement far north of Atlas. Because it is so far away, when building the settlement, SDC had to build Yestausruhen, a settlement between Atlas and Maxcova as a resting stop for transportation. At the start of winter, White Fang somehow managed to bomb Yestausruhen's powerplant, resulting in total blackout throughout the settlement. Winter in Solitas get harsher the further it travels into the continent. With no means for warmth, the negativity around the settlement rapidly increased, attracting the grimms that normally hide during the winter, further cutting off the settlement's supply lines, which in turn added to the negativity. Flying was not an option thanks to the severe blizzards signature of Remnant polar regions. Travelling through Solitas winter was already difficult, marching an army through it in two weeks was impossible. SDC and the Atlas could not do anything but watch as the grimms overran the settlement in less than two weeks, no evacuations possible. And when routes from Atlas are cut off, Maxcova would not last. Dusts are useful, but not edible, and mining soil are not for agriculture. It would not be until summer begins that Atlas can mobilize its force to Yestausruhen without losing half of the force on the way and another half of the remaining force fighting the grimm in extreme cold. By that time, food would have ran out and the starving would have invited the grimm in.

This was to be the blow that brings SDC to its knee, and Jacques Schnee could not, would not allow it. So he put out a price worth a group of fifty above average huntsmen to reclaim Yestausruhen. He posted his request mostly to the regions near Vacuo and Vale, knowing the huntsmen there are more foolhardy and would be more likely to underestimate the winter in the north. Fifty huntsmen from hot regions are not enough for the hard march into a quarter of the continent and then a fight in a settlement filled with grimms, fully exposed to the cold and the blizzard. But they are just about enough for the whole party to be wiped out while still reducing the grimms population size to the point a small group of Atlesian Knights can be sent in and clear out the stragglers. Even better that Vacuo and Valean huntsmen do not lose hope easily so they run little risk of attracting more grimms to the battle ground. Jacques potentially does not have to pay a lien if his estimation is correct.

Glynda was absolutely livid when she heard about this part. Even Ozpin sported a scowl rarely seen on his face. Ironwood did not like it either, but it was all legal moves and Atlas had no reason to stop it, especially when they actually stand to benefit from it.

But then before SDC done gathering the forces, the kid showed up.

He just waltzed right into SDC headquarter, asked to take part in the mission, had his name written down and his pay ID logged and headed straight to Atlas north gate.

Two months later the tower guards at the north gate spot the kid riding his bike back towards Atlas, looking barely human with frozen blood and fading bruises, countless half-healed scratches, gashes and bite marks. The most unnerving thing was, however, that people said the kid didn't seem to even notice his injuries. He just asked the guards to use the shower, put on a change of clothes and head straight to SDC. He didn't even bother to with bandages as the bleeding had already stop. As the guards recounted in the report, with his gashes, cuts and bruises still fresh and visible, the boy looked positively like a corpse.

Maybe it was because of how he looked when he came back to SDC, as soon as it was confirmed that Yestausruhen was cleared the bounty was paid to the boy without much hassle.

To say Ozpin became interested in Morskoy Mertvetsov is an understatement. Ironwood had no love for mercenaries so other than investigating his name and age and put him on mercenaries watch list the general did not pay the boy much more attention. Ozpin, on the other hand, spent the next two months pulling all kinds of contacts and sources for information on this boy. The more he found out, the more he determined to get this boy into his academy.

On Glyda part, she wondered if it was a good idea at all.

Apparently Morskoy's mercenary career had always been missions like Yestausruhen.

Suicide missions, jobs no one wants to take, jobs that require more than ten people, he took them all solo.

"The deadman walking" is what other mercenaries called him. Partly because of his looks every time he come back from a job, partly because everyone thinks he's going to die in one of these missions.

Glynda saw a deathseeker.

Then there is his origin, his 17 years of nothing but fighting, killing and brushing shoulder with death, spending most of his life nowhere near Atlas, but deep in the unforgiving Solitas inland.

So when Ozpin managed to track the boy down to a bar in Maxcova, Glynda expected something like a wild, brutal, terse, volatile, angst filled version of Qrow Brawen.

She expected someone dangerous.

Glynda had no qualm with problem children, she had had her own fill of dealing with troublemakers, angry teens, depressed children and even traumatized ones. But to put someone like this amidst a bunch of wide eyes, impulsive teenagers who are too young to really know how bad things can get...what would she do if he break someone leg or Oum forbids, kill someone?

When she found a largest person she had ever met sitting at the counter downing his drink, with the largest sword she has ever seen next to him, when he suddenly turned around, baring his teeth and addressed her and Ozpin (she was certain he did not look behind once and there was no reflecting surface in front of him), when he asked if they were going to fight; she was understandably a little tense.

Then he acted like a normal 17 years old.

Friendly, a little bit awkward, try to be polite and eloquent when speaking to adults but can't help but slipping out some vulgarities. If anything, he's on the well-mannered side, but nothing of that aggressive nonsense. For a moment Glynda thought they got the wrong person. But Morskoy Mertvetsov is a very particular name.

Then he pulled the jaded impression back as he talked about drinking and recommended and ordered alcohols. She would really like to steer the kid from walking down Qrow path.

Then it turned out he was drinking hot chocolate.

Ozpin is chuckling audibly now. For Ozpin that is as good as rolling on the floor laughing.

"I was under the impression you would share the Votca shots with us."

Morskoy blinks

"But I'm underage, headmaster."

Ozpin smile gets wider

"Indeed my dear boy you are. I supposed the blame falls on me for that misunderstanding."

"…No harm no foul, sir"

"Terribly kind of you, Mr. Morskoy."

The bartender came back to the trio with 2 shot glasses and a bottle of clear liquid. Morskoy starts to fish around in his overcoat pocket as the bartender pours into the glasses. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

"So headmaster, professor, do you smoke?"

Glynda knocks back her Votca shot, it tastes like winter and then it warms her like a campfire.

 **Notes:**

 **Yestausruhen is a combination of Russian Есть (eat) and German Ausruhen (rest).**

 **The information in this chapter affect quite a few more cast members than the people appeared here.**


	4. Prologue 3

**A/N:**

 **And here we are the final part of the prologue.**

Prologue 3:

Headmaster Ozpin is quite fond of this boy.

Perhaps it is because Mors keeps handing out surprises, the pleasant kind, to him and Glynda. Granted, it may just be because he has, like Glynda, built certain expectations about the boy given his background and his life; when the boy turned out to be a well-adjusted, good-mannered kid he noticed these traits more than he usually would. Still, he welcomes it. At his age he rarely gets surprised anymore and when he does it is rarely something good.

But ah… the well-adjusted part remains to be seen. The boy's life and his have more commons than he would ever wish on anyone. In one way or another death is a ghost that is ever present in their life, demanding their attention and yet never claiming them. Ozpin certainly did not take 17 years to come to term with his situation.

But back to being surprised.

"No, thank you . I don't smoke." Seeing as Glynda has drunk her Votca Ozpin also downs his drink in one smooth motion.

"Neither do I, Mr. Morskoy" Glynda replies with a frown. Mors nods and put his pack back into his coat pocket. Glynda leans over the counter to catch Mors eyes "And I don't think you should either Mr. Morskoy, you are a bit young for that."

Ah. So Glynda likes the child also.

Mors waves his hands "Oh.. Oh no no no Professor Goodwitch I don't smoke. It'd give me bad breaths and make me seems hard to approach. It just that, since a lot of the people I deal with smokes like a busted bullhead turbine, right? I figure might as well have a pack ready and offer them a fuse. People usually got pretty friendly with me after that you know? You wouldn't believe how many fights I've avoided just by offering people a lit."

"I…see. That would…makes sense."

"But cigars though, I would like to try cigars at some point. Like, me in a suit, hair all slicked back, big ass signet on the thumb, sitting in a hover chair and puffing on a cigar with cello playing in the background, that would be pretty cool."

That _would_ be quite cool Ozpin had to admit. Maybe he should…never mind it's not worth the warning glance Glynda gave him. He did catch the twitch at the corner of her mouth, however.

The bartender comes back with their drinks, and it appears Mors really has hot chocolate, not some kind of cocktail with that name. Ozpin drink has quite an interesting taste; harsh, but he likes it.

"Now, business, then. First of all we would like to confirm that you are in fact 'The walking deadman' Morskoy Mertvetsov who took care of the Yestausruhen incident last winter."

"…Stupid cyka blyat…walking dead my frozen butt…" Mors mumbles, Glynda chokes a bit "Yes sir, that was me. Might I ask who referred you to me, headmaster? I need to pay them 20 percent of the payout."

"20 percent? Isn't that a little too much for reference?" Glynda asks taking a sip of her drink, she looks back at her glass and then takes another sip.

"Eh, well. I wasn't sure how much to pay the first person, the pay was good so I figure 20 percent is a reasonable compensation. She did look surprise and pretty happy then but I thought that was just her wasn't expecting it. I've been using that as a rule of thumb ever since. It's hard to get a hold of me since I don't stay at one place for too long and I'm usually way out of civilization, you know? So I really appreciate a reference."

"That we know very well, Mr. Morskoy. If I may ask, why living in such a manner?"

Mors' smile seems to age a little bit.

"Mercenary work is hard work sir, and just as scarce. Normally for Grimms you call a huntsman, for protection you call a bodyguard, for security you call a security solution or breed them in house. And those jobs required training track and a license. Oh! I mean it's not that I'm criticizing anything sir. I get it. Can't have some idiot with no skills think he's the shit and try to hunt grimms for some liens and get himself killed. That's bad management overall and it messes up the economy. But anyway, merc are usually people fallen on hard times and just a few pushes away from breaking bad. They get the leftovers, the one that usually out in the grimm lands and uh.."

"Settling in one place means running out of work."

"Yes sir, and stepping on each other toes too."

"Is that why you took suicide and high-risk jobs? To avoid stepping on other mercenaries toes?" Yep, Glynda likes this child.

"Ah well mainly it's because they are usually really high pay so I don't have to work for a while after that ma'am. But yes I would rather leave the more doable ones for other people; keeps them from being cornered into my usual jobs, so it works out. ...Wow, you really did your investigation on me pretty comprehensively didn't you" Mors actually sounds quite appreciative of that.

Ozpin stirs his glass gently. It makes sense, he supposes. But he also knows that is not the whole story. If money is the young man motivation, he would not have given over half of his reward to the effort of rebuilding and fortifying Yestausruhen. Suicide missions are usually posted when the situations are truly hopeless and someone involved are just waiting to die. The kingdom rulers would raise funds from the public for the reward as a final attempt. More often than not, that money goes into the effort of fixing damages and rebuilding or bettering public services rather than rewarding someone. Mountain Glenn was a suicide mission situation, after which the money went into education at Beacon Academy. It wasn't a complete coincidence that Beacon started to produce some of the best Huntsman and and Huntresses in Remnant after the Mt. Glenn had fallen. Suicide missions posting are basically so that the administration can say 'we did all we could' after the tragedy, therefore the rewards have to be quite substantial to indicate genuine efforts. Yestausruhen was in fact fairly underpaid for its scale, being funded by a single entity, which was SDC no less, but it was still the highest influx in Mors mercenary career.

No one would take such a risk, however, in the same way no one would try to stop a volcano eruption to earn liens, sure the pay is exceptionally good but money doesn't have much uses when you're dead.

All that is to say jobs like Yestausruhen are very rare, and when there is one no one under normal circumstances is willing to take it, and by some miracles the job is completed no one in their right mind will give away half of their acquired fortune, especially when every lien means a seconds of not risking his life.

Ozpin thinks he knows why Mors take on these kinds of mission, the boy simply doesn't want people to give up on living.

Ah well back to the business at hand

"Yes we did quite a bit of study on your profile, I hope you are not upset with that?" A shake "To answer your question it was general Ironwood who informed me of your exploit. But to the main question of tonight: how would you like to enroll as a student at Beacon Academy for the coming school year?"

Mors stops just shy of pressing his mug to his mouth and looks at him, then the child leans down on the counter to look at Glynda, whom nods back at him.

"So this is not a job for me?"

"I'm afraid not"

"Do I have to pay Mr. Ironwood then?"

"I don't think that will be necessary Mr. Morskoy." Glynda says

"Okay…Headmaster, you do know that I kill grimms for a living right?"

"There are plenty other things you can benefits to study at Beacon I would wager."

"Such as what sir?"

"Teamwork? Dust usage? Also a huntsman license upon graduation would be good for you I'll say."

"Huh, you raised several valid points there."

"Thank you. So, your answer?"

"…...May I know the reason why? I don't have any transcript, certainly didn't pass any test, and you've come awfully far to recruit a student headmaster Ozpin. Oh! Not that I don't appreciate your offer sir. Just want to know why I'm worth the trouble"

"Let's say that Yestausruhen is the test then. And about the transcript, it's not that uncommon Beacon would waive the requirement for individual we believe to have great potential. We have two more unorthodox cases this year actually."

"As for why we want you, isn't that's what school naturally do? Wanting a student with good potential?"

"That still doesn't really explain why me in particular sir"

"Perhaps the better question would be why are you stalling Mr. Morskoy."

The boy sighs, leans back on his seat and abruptly jerks back up when he remembers he's sitting on a bar stool. Mors takes a swig of his chocolate and gives Ozpin a sheepish smile.

"Maybe I'm a bit scared of a chance I've done nothing to deserve sir."

"Mr. Morskoy however it happened, the fact remains that you have come into our attention." Glynda speaks up taking yet another sip. Did she already drink half of it? It appears the Votca is stronger than they had expected. "Up until before we started to converse I was rather torn on inviting you to Beacon, to be honest. On one hand you might be a dangerous individual, so putting you in Beacon might put other students in unnecessary dangers. On the other hand, it will not stand well for us to see a child in a bad situation and do nothing about it. We are teachers, Mr. Morskoy, we want to give children a good shot at their future. At any rate, you have made my stand on this matter much easier to choose."

Glynda takes of her glasses, put them on the counter, rests her head on her hand and locks eyes with Mors.

"I think you are a good child; and I think you deserve better. We want you to have a better chance at life, Mr. Morskoy."

Then she sits back up, put on her glasses and watch the bartender cleaning his wares while steadily drinking her White Rushan.

Mors stares at her for a while, then looks at Ozpin, who shrugs and tilts his head.

"That about sums it up. Rather eloquently I must say. Do you have any other question?"

"….How much is the tuition fee sir?"

* * *

"How are you feeling?"

The alcohol was a bit stronger than she expected, but Glynda welcomes the slight buzz in her head and the warmth in her stomach.

"I'm fine Ozpin. Feeling quite nice actually."

"Indeed. And it was a rather pleasant night we had. I did not expect the massage and hot bath tickets when we part ways. The boy does have a certain pull to his personality."

Glynda hums in agreement, staring out of the bullhead windows. The moon shines rather more brightly here in Solitas than in other parts of Remnant. It is bigger here too, she had heard.

"Ozpin.. Perhaps we.. should take this as a guideline for Miss Belladonna and Mr. Arc cases."

Ozpin gave her a glance, he too is watching the shattered moon. He taps his feet softly

"Perhaps we should, Glynda."

 **And that's it for the prologue. I did not expect it to be this long. There were a lot of things to set up and this is one of the defining moment for Mors so I did not want to make it to feel so rush. One other reason is that the main story is starting in the next chapter, and frankly I'm a bit scared of writing combat situation; juggling power levels seems like a pain.**

 **So our protagonist is going to meet with the main casts next chapter. Here's praying I can write an adorable Ruby Rose.**

 **One other thing of note is that I decided to change Mors' sword name into Tsvetok, which means Blossom but it fits RWBY naming sense a bit better.**

 **As always, read and review.**


	5. Chapter 1: Jaune Arc

**A/N**

 **Ah well not much to say here, let's get on with the story.**

Chapter 1: Jaune Arc

Mors wakes up to the sound of someone retching.

He was pretty tired when he arrived at Vale from Atlas. The magic of intercontinental flight wore off after around the first hour on the airship, and he was left with the whole six hours of trying and failing to find a comfortable position in a seat way too small for him (to be fair he is a bit meaty he'd admit, but still..). Mors shut down shortly after he'd boarded the airship to Beacon and confirmed that he had gotten on the right one. The cool weather of Valean autumn certainly helped the process.

Speaking of uncomfortable flight…

The blond young man next to him seems to be having the time of his life.

"Not a fan of flying death traps?" Mors taps his fingers on the soft spots behind the ears, pushes lightly on them while looking towards the blond kid. The guy mimics the gesture and presses on his own pressure points.

"Phhhuu..That feels a bit better. Thanks man." Mors waves his hand "No, not a fan of any kind of aviation to be honest. If humans are meant to fly they would have wings, you know?" the blond makes a dry-heave "This is just me naturally reacting to the unnatural."

"That doesn't sound right, but for some reasons I can't fault the logic." Mors points out the airship window "Anyway, keep your eyes on the horizon for a bit, it should help with your sense of balance. Let's do introduction after you get yourself oriented yes?"

The blond nods and turns to study the skyline with intense interest. Mors takes the time to look around for a bit. The ship passenger chamber is high and spacious, arranged like a small banquet hall; if there was no window, it would be pretty hard to tell that they are on a vehicle at all. Can't really blame blond for getting motion sickness, then. It means he's more sensitive to motion than the other people.

There seems to be plenty of excitements going around the room. Most of everyone are engaging in animated conversations, a few people are looking out of the windows with an awed look on their face; it's lively, and Mors likes it. He catches the sight of another blonde, this one with long and voluminous golden locks, who keeps bouncing on her feet and jumping in to hug a smaller girl wearing a black skirt with red trim and a red cloak at regular intervals. The red cloak girl seems to be halfway between excited and anxious…a bit disturbed by the blonde's hug attacks too. Mors is not the best judge of age out there, but that girl looks a bit younger than the average bear around; like she's fifteen or something, then again maybe she just uses really good skin care products.

What's a bee's knee though?

Mors feels a tap on his arm and turns to the new acquaintance on his right.

"All good now?"

"Yeah" the blond bobs his head "I'm fine…I'm fine…Totally… The name's Jaune Arc, by the way; short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, the ladies love it."

Mors tilts his head

"Is that so? Hmmm… _Jaune_ Arc… Jaune _Arc_ … Jau _ne_ A _rkh…_ Ja- _"_

"I'm really sorry, I got too confident with my introduction, please have mercy on me."

"Oh no no no… sorry. I was just testing my pronunciation with it. I would agree with you, actually, it's short, sweet and indeed rolls off the tongue."

"It is?"

"Well, I don't know about the ladies loving it though. No experience in the flirting department I'm afraid."

"Eh three out of four; I'll take it." Jaune shrugs.

.

.

"So uh… your name?"

"Oh! Right. Morskoy, Morskoy Mertvetsov." Mors twirls his hand in small flourishes "At your service."

"Oh? That's uh… that's…"

"Not so short, sweet and rolls off the tongue?"

"…I'm sure the ladies will love it? It has that whole sophisticated and exotic vibe going on."

They share a grin.

"Thank you, but I'll settle for Mors."

"Sure, Jaune for me then. Nice to meet you Mors." Jaune holds out his hand, to which Mors grasp into a handshake.

"Nice to meet you too, Jaune."

Jaune makes a comment about how Mors hand is humongous, then they talk a bit about where each comes from. Jaune comes from the agriculture district of Vale and Mors decides that 'north of Atlas' about covers where he's from. Jaune is a bit awkward but Mors isn't exactly a social butterfly either. There are some weird lulls between the conversations, but they get along well enough. Somebody has turned on the news and it runs stories about a Dust robbery by a criminal called Roman Torchwick and a Faunus civil right protest gone south thanks to the White Fang. Jaune is bringing Mors up to speed about Torchwick when a hologram of professor Goodwitch pops up and she goes over a few introduction lines. They must be fairly close then.

When Beacon comes into view, Mors has to admit he is sufficiently impressed. Whoever designed this academy sure got majesty all the way down to a 'ty'. An enormous castle, with a high tower stabbing straight into the sky, surrounded by lush green forests and bright blue rivers and lakes, standing on the side of a tall ass cliff with a column of water connecting to the mini ocean below. Ohhhh, a tower by the cliff looking down to the sea, _Beacon_. That's pretty cool.

Then the airship lurches.

All of Jaune's efforts to reign in his motion sickness are promptly deposited into his stomach and race up his throat. Jaune's cheeks inflate like there's a Dust explosion went off in his mouth. He clamps his hands over his talker in valiant effort to reserve his dignity, a battle which Jaune Arc is not going to win today.

"Big lunch?" Mors asks scanning the room for a bin; Jaune won't make it to the restroom. The glance Jaune gives him somehow says it all: big enough.

"There! In the back pass the blonde and the girl with red cloak." and Jaune bolts straight at the direction Mors's pointing at. Oh... Looks like he owes that blonde girl a new pair of boots.

* * *

Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, Mors knows this very well. But apparently that law also applies to vomiting bouts. Jaune Arc had done a stellar job keeping his motion sickness in check. But when he started throwing up he was a rampaging dragon breathing out torrents after torrents of flame, except instead of flame it was half-decomposed food and a bit of stomach acid. It doesn't stop even when they dock into Beacon port; Jaune simply changes his puking location from indoor to outdoor.

Mors gives Jaune a pat in the back, tells the poor guy he will wait a little up ahead and Jaune just take his time getting it all out of his system.

.

.

Mors likes people watching. The activity is quite fulfilling for him, it's like the feeling you get watching fine dining food when all you have are nutrition bars, like a promise you'll get there some day. Huh, he hasn't eaten nutrition bars for a while now; wonder if they have it in Vale? He kinda miss it now that it was brought up…Oh hey there's that blonde whose boots Jaune redecorated, Mors should probably note down the boots model; dark brown, knee high, no heels, simple enough. Hmmm… orange scarf, tan crop jacket with puffy sleeves, yellow crop top, black shorts; and the brown and white waistcoat is a really nice touch. She's with some other people though. Where's the other girl?

BOOM

Ah, there she is. Is that Weiss Schnee? Wow she's really tearing through the red cloak girl, huh.

It's tough day first day for everyone, he guesses.

 **That was pretty decent, I think. Next up, Ruby Rose.**

 **R &R, if you would.**


	6. Chapter 2: Ruby Rose

**A/N: Hohh boy here we go**

Chapter 2: Ruby Rose

Let it be known that Ruby Rose is a tough girl.

Sure it may not look very convincing right now with her looking like a dumb turtle in front of the pretty white hair girl with the revolver rapier. But in her defense that girl is yelling really, really loud! And it was _kinda_ Ruby's fault (Yang's, it was mostly Yang's fault) falling into the girl's luggage and messing up her stuffs and blowing themselves up. She feels bad, and she doesn't know how to deal with the older girl, so she's turtling.

But no more! Ruby Rose is a big girl, she's going to apologize gracefully and with all her heart, and the other girl will probably sigh then forgive her, and they might even be able to be friends!

"I'm really, _really_ sorry!"

"Ugh, you complete _dolt_! What are you even _doing_ here? Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?"

Well so much for that. Also mean words, meet sore point.

"W-Well, I-"

"This isn't your ordinary combat school. It's not just sparring and practice, you know! We're here to fight _monsters_ , so... watch where you're going!"

Oooooooh nuh uh she did not.

"Hey! I said I was sorry, princess!" that was pretty sassy.

"It's heiress, actually." Comes a new voice "Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, one of the world's largest energy propellant producers." The newcomer is a girl with long black hair and amber eyes. She dresses in black and white and wears a cute bow on her head. The new girl hands the Weiss girl a dust vial. It must have been thrown off during the explosion.

"Finally, some recognition!" Wiess shoots a smug glance towards Ruby. Oh no... she can't take a team up. Why would this girl team up with Weiss? Why can't she be on their team?

"The same company infamous for its controversial labor forces and questionable business partners…" Bow girl continues before Weiss can speak more. The smug look freezes on the heiress's face; Ruby giggles a little bit "…and suicidal contracts."

The last part was barely a whisper, like the girl was just talking to herself, but they caught it. Weiss is visibly startled. She regains her composure and reverts back to her annoyed scowl quickly enough, but somehow Ruby feels that the bite doesn't return with the scowl. Maybe…today is a bit rough on Weiss too.

"The nerve of…. Ugh!" Weiss waves a hand and walks off to the inside of Beacon in a quick pace. Her butlers(?) pick up her luggage and rolls them off. Ruby calls after her

"I promise I'll make it up to you…" No reply…sigh…okay. She turns to her new ally "so what's your-" The black bow girl is already walking off inside "-name…" Oh, so not ally, then…The sword with dark gray sheath on her back is pretty cool though; it's probably a katana, which Ruby would like to talk with the girl about…

Ruby sighs, collapses on her knees, then decides she's in the worse mood than that and proceeds to lay back on the ground. Can't believe she was super excited for Beacon. The one thing she was afraid of came true as soon as she steps into the school ground, and she wasn't even the bee's knees. Stupid Yang…stupid two years skip…stupid Dust robbers…

"Welcome to Beacon" Ruby breaths out.

"Why thank you. Welcome to you too."

Ruby snorts out a laugh. She did not expect that at all. She turns her head to her left to look for the person she apparently extended her warm welcome to.

Blue.

That's the first thing she notices about the guy squatting beside her. The second thing is well, he's squatting (pfff, who does that?). The boy wears deep blue coat with double columns of golden buttons and standing collars hugging his neck; his dark gray cargo pants legs are tucked into a pair of gunmetal greaves which connect to matching sabatons. His got purple eyes, but not light like Yang's lilac; they are the deeper shade of purple, kinda remind her of the sunset she used to watch on the beach back home.

"You okay?" the new guy asks.

"…Yeah, I'm okay now."

"Mmm. A little trouble in mingle city back there?"

"Well mingle city sucks, I prefer the everyone-is-friendly-and-no-one-yell-at-me city better."

The boy chuckles

"It does sound like a better city. But don't get too down about it; that was only two people, and one of them is a bit of a special snowflake." Ruby shouldn't laugh, but she did. "Third time's the charm?" he extends a hand.

Ruby takes it, she grins "Sure, I'm Ruby."

"Nice to meet you Ruby, I'm Mors" Mors stands up, and pulls Ruby to her feet in the process.

Wow, he's ginormous

"Wow, you're ginormous!"

They start to walk towards a shade Mors pointed at. This guy is super huge! He must be twice as tall as Ruby! She is not a short girl-she drinks milk, but her eyes are only right about the level of his coat's belt. She looks like a kid walking next to him…is she _really_ not short, though? B-but she drinks milk!

"Thank you, I-why are you walking on tiptoes?"

"…A-am I short?"

"I…I don't think you are? You're younger than the usual first year?" she flinches, but nods anyway "fifteen?" oh wow how did he do that? Another nod "you're around Weiss's height so…you're about average I'll say? A bit on the tall side if anything."

She nods slowly "Mmmmkay, thanks." and returns to her normal walk.

Mors looks thoughtful for a second, then bends his knees and starts to walk with his legs kicking forward.

Ruby punches Mors shoulder

"Nooooooo don't do that! I'm over it now, really!" it feels like she hit a rock.

Mors scratches his head and stands back up. He really is really tall, isn't he?

Just as they reach the shade Ruby notices Mors is pulling along a huuuge wooden case, even taller than him and as wide as his shoulders. And it's weird that the thing is actually floating above ground, getting pulled by a thick rope, like some sort of oversize rectangle balloon. What is it with this guy and oversize stuff? What do they even call wooden box that size? A coffin? Oum's is that a coffin?

"Is that a coffin?"

Mors is confused for a moment, he turns around to see the case

"No! Brothers, is that what it looks like? No, that's my-"

Mors is cut off by the sight of a blond boy approaching them. He has a sword with white sheath and blue hilt on his hip. The hilt is long enough for two hand wielding, it seems. He wears blue jeans and black hoodie. A white chestplate and matching pair of spaulders are worn over the hoodie. Wait, isn't that…

"Hey Mors, thanks for waiting" The blond greets Mors with a lopsided grin, he then turns to Ruby "Hey, I'm Jaune." He gives a little wave. They begin to head into Beacon.

"Ruby." She waves back "Aren't you the guy who threw up on the ship?"

The grin part on Jaune's lopsided grin drops straight down into a frown.

Maybe she should leave mingle city. Hang-with-Yang (and Mors) town seems lovely this season.

"Yes he is" Surprisingly that was Mors.

Jaune throws his arms up and gives Mors a dirty look.

"A couple of hours into this friendship and you're already selling me out? What the hell man?"

Mors puts his hands in a surrendering gesture

"Sorry. I thought it would hurt your pride to admit it yourself, so it might be better if someone else say it for you; can't exactly play the deny card here you know?"

"That doesn't sound right but somehow I can't refute the logic" Jaune shakes his head. He turns to the snickering Ruby "It was a perfectly natural reaction to the unnaturalness of flying! Motion sickness is a much more common problem than people let on!"

Ruby puts a hand over her mouth and holds up the other "Look, I'm sorry. It just, Vomit Boy was the first thing that came to mind."

"She blew up, made a crater and all."

"Hey! Don't deal with your guilt like that!"

"How about I call you Crater Face hmm?" Jaune jumps right on the chance.

"It was an accident!"

"How are you guys so good with names?" Mors asks with laughter rumbling in his throat.

"Oh don't think you can walk out of this unscathed Mate Trader "Jaune points at Mors "you're the one who was fanning the fire." he narrows his eyes.

"Yeah! What he said, Ursa Man. How do you plead?"

"I…probably deserve that" Mors bobs his head slowly. Jaune and Ruby give each other a high five.

.

.

As the conversation dies down, the trio walk along in a bit of an awkward silence. Jaune starts whistling and Mors looks around at their surroundings.

Ruby decides to fall back to her favorite conversation topic.

"Sooo I got this thing…" she extends Crescent Rose and stab it into the ground with a hearty 'THWANG'

Jaune and Mors let out an impressed 'ooooh'; Mors even absentmindedly claps a little bit. She likes these guys.

"Is that a scythe?" Jaune asks, not paying attention to how a little bit dumb that question is. Mors gives him an uncertain glance, like he's not sure he's seeing what Jaune is seeing.

"Sure is! It's also a customizable high-impact sniper-rifle."

"A wha..?"

She smirks, cocks her weapon "It's also a gun."

"Ohhh. That's cool!" Jaune looks over to Mors, who nods his head a few times in appreciation.

"Fighting with a scythe is pretty high on the cool scale, right up there with the rocket punch" Mors levels his hand a bit over his head

"Thanks!" Ruby beams at Mors. Rocket punch is like, the coolest thing ever! Also, Mors is pretty tall.

Anyway, they complimented her baby, she ought to return the favor. She turns to Jaune "Your sword looks pretty nice."

"Oh! Y-yeah, and I've got a shield, too!" Jaune takes the sheath into his forearm, it expands into a kite shield with a symbol of two yellow half circles on it. Ruby gives an 'oooohh' and Mors hums his approval.

"What do they do?" Ruby asks feeling the shield out.

"The shield gets uh… smaller" Jaune fumbles with his shield. It expands and retracts and bounces around in his hand for a few times before shrinking back to its sheath form. He puts it back on his belt and gives it a few pats "when I get tired of carrying it, I can just…put it…uh away."

"Neat!"

"Really?" Jaune widens his eyes at Mors.

"Yeah. It makes the set compact and uncumbersome. The sheath pops into a shield so like, you can protect blade, walk around with the sword when not fighting but also have a defense instead of a scabbard dangling around your waist during combat. Simple, but fully utilized. Very elegant." Mors nods his head sagely.

"But it's just … you know … a shield and a sword…" Jaune scratches his head.

Mors shrugs

"In the right hand with the right skill, shield and sword combo can be pretty devastating. It strikes a good balance between defense and offense and is versatile as heck. Not many combat situations you can't counter with a shield and a sword, long range attack maybe… It's one of those things that if it's not broken, don't fix it, make it bigger. Anyway, why are you dissing your own weapon?"

"Pshht, what? Noo. Just, pushing the conversation along…" Jaune laughs lightly and puts his swords away. He pats on it a few times.

Ruby stares at Mors. Did she just meet another weapon nerd?

"Are you also a weapon nerd?" Please be a weapon nerd.

Mors runs a hand over his hair

"I-I don't know? I have a definite interest in knowing weapon designs I guess? Not fanatically passionate about it though."

"Oh. Okay." Awwwwwwwww.

"I take it that you are?"

"Yeah, I'm a bit of a dork when it comes to weapons sooo…" she caresses her Cosy Rosy.

"Oh. Uh, well, I'd say I'm pretty informed on the matters regarding weapons. So… I'm open for anytime you want to have a discussion. About weapons." Mors gives her and OK sign.

That's nice "Thanks, I'll hold you to that." Ruby smiles "Can I see your weapons then?"

Mors pulls the hugantic wooden case in. Ohhhh, that makes senses. He opens the latches on the side of the case, but then pauses and looks back at Ruby and Jaune.

"It doesn't look like a coffin, does it?"

"It kinda does."

"Yep, it does."

He groans "Well it's not, okay? It's my gear kit!" she and Jaune exchange glances at 'kit'. Mors turns to his 'kit' grumbling "Morskoy Mertvetsov, pulling around a damn coffin, for what? Power naps?" Ruby stiffens a snicker.

He swings the case open, and Ruby is awestruck by the biggest sword she's ever seen in her life.

When Mors took it out of the case and set the tip on the ground, the sword is still a good head taller than him. The hilt is divided into three sections: golden twisting metal near the pommel, swollen section in blue wrappings in the middle, and straight cylindrical section that flats out a bit near the cross guard (ooooh that would help with edge alignment). The blade is wide and thick; wider than her shoulder and about three fingers thick. Carvings of strange symbols and Ruby's instant favorite: a rose with a butterfly resting on it, run along the blade.

Ruby dashes over to the sword and starts feeling out the carvings. Hmm, the first symbols are different on the two sides...Jaune walks over more slowly, his mouth hangs slightly open.

"Wow… That looks ... really heavy."

Mors nods "It is, around twice my weight actually" Jaune snaps his head towards Mors, who taps on the black circlet clasping across the blade "Gravity Dust ring, people use it in cargo shipping, cuts down half of the sword weight; the rest the box here can handle." He knocks on the case "Repurposed GravDust shipping crates. This thing costed me over half of my earnings, but you wouldn't believe the pain of lugging my gear around before it."

Mors fishes out two of the rings from the box and hands them over to Jaune and Ruby "Here, one is good for about a month of continuous use, after that just refill it with gravity Dust. But you shouldn't use it too much though. It's a good idea to get used to the weight of your weapon."

"Why would you use such a heavy sword though?"

"Well it's-"

"Is there another sword in this sword?" Ruby, who was lost in inspecting the humongousword, pipes up "Oh, sorry Mors, answer Jaune first."

"It's okay, that's actually also related to what Jaune was asking." Mors holds one hand on the blade and uses the other one to twist the hilt in a weird way, then with a 'Clang' he pulls out another blade. Compare to the rose carved blade this one is much thinner, and pointier too. Ruby gives herself a pat on the back, the sword hilt looks a little too stabby supportive for a mainly slashing sword. The new sword is nearly as long as the other one. Mors has to let go of the hilt and grab onto the blade to fully pull it out. He hands the hilt to Ruby, who squeals a bit and starts to inspect it all over.

"Oooof! Wow this is still pretty heavy" Mors takes out a smaller GDR and clasps it around the hilt. "Oooh this is actually pretty well balanced considering how long the blade is" Ruby swings it up and down. Jaune takes a few steps away from her.

"Mmhmm, the hilt is made from depleted power Dust crystal, so it's a lot denser, meaning heavier than the blade, so the point of balance is right around the guard, about four centimeters from the guard center I think?" Ruby swings the sword a bit more vigorously to test out the balance. Mors turns to Jaune "So the big one for monster and the small one for human; the extra weight helps cutting through thick skin and dense muscles."

"Ohh I think I get it."

"Yep. But I think we should move on though, don't want to be late for the opening ceremony. I looked at the map earlier so I can take you there."

As Mors put his stuff back, Ruby takes a quick look around the box. There's a knife with blue handle in the corner of the box, though for Ruby it's more like a shortsword; she makes a mental note to ask him about it later. A pair of gunmetal gauntlets hanging on the door of the floating closet. Closet! That's the word!

"Mors! Mors!" he turns at her, she points at his box "Closet!"

He blinks at her, then gives her the widest grin she thinks his face is capable of.

"Ruby er..."

"Rose"

"Ruby Rose, whatever you want to eat next time we hang out, my treat."

Points. To. Ruby.

 **Phewww, and that was that. I actually want to write a bit more, put a few more things in there. But it was getting too long. Oh well I'm sure I can fit it in somewhere else down the line.**

 **Now for a little bit of visual aids, all imgur links, just put them after imgur*dot*com, or check out the links in my profile.**

 **Morskoy Mertvetsov in full gear because I can't draw face:** **/a/tLIHhhU**

 **Tsvetok (Blossom):** **/c84magw**

 **Kolyuchka (Thorn):** **/** **1msbjAT**

 **Lepestok (Petal):** **/** **INTvgnZ**

 **Mors's height in comparison with other characters:** **/** **eQ70z54**

 **Oh and for anyone who wonders about Mors eyes color: Interestingly, just go to Google Image, search 'red to blue gradient'.**

 **That's all folks. New chapter's coming soon.**

 **Read and review please. Good, bad I'll take it all.**


	7. Chapter 3: Yang Xiao Long

**A/N: This will probably be the last of the conversational chapters.**

Chapter 3: Yang Xiao Long

It is no secret that Yang Xiao Long loves her baby sister.

Sure, she ditched Ruby and hung with her crowd from Signal. But that was mainly for Ruby to make friend on her own. She could have just easily included Ruby into the circle, and had all the more fun with the little sis around. But that would make Ruby grows dependent on her and frankly, Yang saw little signs of it lately. That just wouldn't do. Overdependence is a very bad thing, Yang knows.

Besides, lil' sis keeps saying she's bad with people; but Yang knows her better than anyone: She. Is. _Adorable_. Also, she has the nicest set of personalities out there. Anyone who can't appreciate that, their loss. Ruby is bound to make some really nice friends, and maybe that will help build up her confidence, too.

So, Yang pushed the little _rose_ into the figurative _water_ (heh).

But she loves her sister. That's why shortly after meeting up with the Signal peeps, she broke off to find a spot for herself and Ruby. Hanging with her people is fun, but she would still be with her sister for the important parts of the little _gem_ 's (heh) first day at school.

Speak of the devil.

"Ruby! Over here! I saved you a spot!" She yells, waving at the little red hood.

No luck on making friend huh… oh well there're plenty of other chances. Ruby's face lights up when she sees Yang but then as she dashes over her face shifts into a sulk, she crosses her arms and adds little stomps into her steps. Has Yang mentioned that her sister is adorable?

"Sooo, how's your first day going, little sister?"

"You mean since you _ditched_ me and I _exploded_?"

"Yikes! Meltdown already?" Is she _that_ socially challenged?

"No! I _literally_ exploded a hole in front of the school! And there were sparks everywhere, some fire…" Ruby looks down and puts a hand on her chin "…and I think some ice…?"

O..kay? Wait! Ahhh she gets it.

Yang smiles broadly

"Are you being sarcastic?" That got her pretty good. Ruby is being a little sassy today.

Lil' sis scoffs

"I wish! I tripped over some crabby girl's luggage, and then she yelled at me…" call it intuition but Yang has the feeling that said crabby girl is the one with pretty white hair standing behind Ruby and glaring daggers at her head "and then I sneezed, and then I _EXPLODED_ …" Ruby throws her hands up for effect, the white hair girl takes a deep breath, uh oh… "then she yelled at me again, and I felt really, _really_ bad" Yang relaxes her stance and slightly bends her knees "and I just wanted her to stop yelling at me!"

"YOU!"

"Oh Oum it's happening againnn!" Ruby lets out a small shriek and jumps towards her. Yang, being a good older sister she is, is ready, and catches her baby sister wholly in her arms.

You could say that it was a well- _Xiao_ culated _Yang_ neuver (heh heh).

The white hair girl follows up on her offense

"You're lucky we weren't blown off the side of the cliff!"

Oh my Oum she really exploded.

"Oh my Oum you really exploded."

"It was an accident! I sneeze! Can you actually hold back your sneeze?" Yang shrugs. Ruby gives her a grateful double-pat on the shoulder and turns to Ice Girl. Hup, let's put the sister down then.

"It was an accident! I sn-what's this?" Ruby is cut off by a pamphlet shoved in in front of her face by Ice Crème. 'DUST for dummies and other Inadequate Individuals'… oookay, this chic is getting a little too mean. Yang's going to let Ruby handle it though, she can clean up her own mess.

"The Schnee Dust Company is not responsible for any injuries or damages sustained while operating a Schnee Dust Company product. Although not mandatory, the Schnee Family highly encourages their customers to read and familiarize themselves with this easy to follow guide to Dust applications and practices in the field."

Schnee huh, that…kinda explains it. Come on sis, throw back some shades!

"Uhhhh…" No! Sis, no!

"You really wanna start making things up to me?" Ice Queen waves the pamphlet in front of Ruby. She takes it

"Absolutely?"

"Then read this and don't ever speak to me again."

Game, set, and fucking match. Maybe her rose needs a little push in the right direction. The Weiss girl is pretty rough, but judging by how her hair is still slightly disheveled and covered in a little bit of soot after what Yang knows was a great amount of effort to fix it, she probably had a hard day too. Yang is willing to be a mediator.

"Look, uh, it sounds like you two just got off on the wrong foot. Why don't you start over and try to be friends, okay?"

Ruby perks up immediately "Yeah! Great idea sis!" she carefully puts Weiss pamphlet away, then holds out her hand and clears her throat "Hello Weiss! I'm Ruby! Wanna hang out? We can go shopping for uh...school supplies!"

Yang pats her sister on the back and looks at the other girl expectantly

"Yeah! And we can paint our nails and try on clothes and talk about cute boys!" Dammit Ice Queen!

"Wow, really?" Ruby leans back and whispers to Yang "Yang, teach me about boys talk later" Dammit sis!

Weiss Sneeze freezes her face and sends glares at Ruby direction

" _No._ "

Well screw you too you snobbish little spoiled-ass brat.

"Well scr-"

She is interrupted by a mic howling.

"I'll…keep this brief." The person in gray hair, headmaster Ozpin speaks up on the microphone. Ah, well. "You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction." The students start to whisper among themselves, Yang and Ruby exchange confused glances "You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."

With that he steps off, the blonde professor who addressed them on the air ship, Glynda Goodwitch (?) takes over and instructs them to gather at the ballroom tonight, lets them know they have initiation tomorrow, after that she dismisses them.

Ice Queen is already walking off away from them; Yang's about to flip the bird to her back when she remembers Ruby is nearby, so she settles for sticking her tongues out. Ruby, for her part, pulls out the Schnee pamphlet and read it through.

"So I guess you haven't made any new friend then" Yang leads them to a bench to sit down.

"Hmm?" Ruby looks up from the pamphlet and puts it away "Well… I met these two guys. Mors and Jaune. They're pretty cool. Jaune is funny, he's the guy who threw up on your shoes" Vomit Boy? Oh man she is going to have a field day with him. She's over the shoes thing, but she is _not_ going to let him live down today. "and Mors is like, _huuuge_ " Ruby raises her arms and spread them out for emphasis "Mors has the same eyes color as you, too. Well, not quite, but they're purple."

"Oh? Why didn't I see them with you back then?" Boys, huh? Ruby does seem like the type to hang out better with boys; what's with her obsession with weapons and all.

Yang should probably look out for the Casanovas though.

"We were about to get inside when Mors realized he forgot his duffel bag back in the courtyard, Jaune offers to go back with him" Ruby snaps her fingers and fishes out her scroll "I should probably text them about tonight." She taps into the scroll "Oh, the bag's not there anymore, they're going to try the lost and found office."

"Do we have a lost and found office here?" Ruby looks horrified "Speaking of which, wanna go and check on our stuffs? They're in the locker room. Maybe tell your friend to look there too."

"Oooooh! Okay!" Ruby frantically types into her scroll, tapping her feet to the ground. Yang looks at her little sister, grins and pats herself on the back. Ruby _did_ make some friends, and if Yang was to guess, they probably helped her after her episode with Why Sneeze (heh).

They seem like pretty good people, Yang would love to meet them, she'll probably like them.

* * *

She does not like them.

Well, one of them anyway.

After checking on their stuffs she and Ruby decided to have a self-guide tour around the academy. Yang was very, _very_ impressed. Training rooms, gyms, arenas, all cutting edge and top of the line here. Made her wonder where all the funds for the academy come from, because the tuition fee is, to be fair, not that high. In fact, it's even lower than that of Signal; but she wasn't about to look the gift horse in the mouth.

As they change into their pajamas and get ready to turn in for the night, Ruby was lying on her belly writing something, Yang was enjoying the macho show the shirtless male students provide when a blond boy in blue onesie walked into her line of sight. Eugh. That put a little damper on her good mood. But she would have paid him no mind and gotten back to the show, had he not walked over to an absolute Ursai of a human.

She could guess right away the duo would be Jaune and Mors. Jaune was tall and a little scraggly with a face that is, to be honest, pretty handsome, in a cute way. Although Yang would not approve his choice of pajamas, he seems alright.

Mors, though, there was something wrong with him; Yang could feel it in her gut.

Scars…

Too many scars…

That was the first thing she noticed about him. He was draping a deep blue long coat over his shoulder, underneath was a plain black, high neck, short sleeves tight shirt. The exposed arms were bulging with lines after lines after lines of dense muscles, and littered on them, were scars. The scars looked like they're fighting for every millimeter of this guy arms, crisscrossing and overlapping each other. Some of them Yang recognized, she had seen them on Uncle Qrow: claw marks, bite marks, bullet punctures, slash marks, stab marks; some she did not. By how there are also scars peeking of his shirt's neck, most likely he has scars in other places too.

This guy is seventeen, Huntsmen have aura, what kind of guy with what kind of life has this many scars?

Someone dangerous.

Yang isn't about to judge a guy by how he looks. 'sides, he helped Ruby out, so maybe he's not bad at all. But, she'd been stubborn and ignored signs of danger once before, it didn't turn out very well; and right now, she gets the sinking feeling in her stomach every time she looks at Mors.

And Ruby hangs with him; what's more, the girl is the kind that makes friend to last.

"Ruby, are those two Mors and Jaune?"

"Hmmm?" Ruby looks up from her writing. Huh, wonder what she's doing there. "Oh yeah! Woah…that's a lot of scars…kinda reminds me of Uncle Qrow…who do you think has more? Mors or Uncle Qrow?"

"…Eh, probably Qrow, the old man has been through some serious stuffs. Did Mors say where he's from?"

"He said 'North of Atlas' is the most apt description, he doesn't stay in one place for long." North of Atlas, she can probably start her digging from there. Ruby frowns "Is there anything north of Atlas?"

"I dunno, apparently there is if he's from there" Yang shrugs "…I'm not sure about this guy Rubes, that is _way_ too many scars over dangerous bad boy requirement."

Ruby props herself up, looks over at Yang with a startled expression "What? No! He's really, _really_ nice. He helped me, and he talked about weapons with me! I don't think he's even aiming for the bad boy image! What kind of dangerous bad boy forgot his own duffel bag? Yaaaaang…" Ruby whines "Don't ban me on hanging out with him. Jaune and Mors are like, the only two friends I have here; and I'm pretty sure Weiss counts as a negative friend, so I'm down to one."

Yang laughs

"There's no such things as negative friends! You just made two friends and one enemy! That's pretty much enough to start a drama club." She catches a pillow from her dear sister with her face "Look, I won't tell you how to choose your friend, but just… be careful, okay? You don't get that many marks going around making friendly conversations."

"Ughhh, yes _Dad_!" Ruby rolls her eyes and gets back to her writing.

Yang grins, she takes another glance at the duo. Jaune is talking to a boy with long black hair with a pink highlighted streak and a girl with orange hair that seems way too energetic to be able to sleep anytime soon. He really need to get better pajamas. Mors, yep, still having that sinking feeling, is already deep in his sleep. He's lying on what looks like a spread out blue fur cloak, using his duffel bag as pillow and his coat as blanket. He seems so out of place. Who sleeps with his boots on?

She turns to the little red.

"What you got there?"

"A letter to the gang back at Signal. I promised to tell them all about Beacon and how things are going."

"Awww, that's so cuuuuuute" she catches another pillow with her face.

"Shut up! I feel bad skipping ahead of them you know! I have to let them know what to avoid on their first day at Beacon." Ruby mumbles "Like crabby princess with rapier…"

"Didn't you say there was another girl?"

"Oh, yeah" Ruby perks up and scans the room "There she is" Yang follows her gaze to a girl with raven black hair and a cute bow sitting on her head. "She left before I could say anything though."

Well then, lil' sis _did_ complain about having only two friends.

"Well, now's your chance!"

Yang stands up, lifts her sister by the arms, ignores the smaller girl feeble attempts at resistance and pulls her towards the little rose's another potential social disaster.

 **Well, I would like to have written out the girls' interaction with Blake but the chapter was getting too long, and most of us here already know how that went down. The idea here is if the inserted Mors doesn't have any interaction with it, things will mostly go as canon. That makes sense, because the world doesn't revolve around Mors. Of course, there are some fundamental changes to Remnant to fit Mors in, and they will have effects on the story later on. The more Mors interacts with the story, the more things change, and some time the changes are large enough to affect the story as a whole. Weaving an OC into a story proves challenging, I can see how most people are skeptical about an OC fic. Let's hope I do not succumb to the weight of the story.**

 **Finally! The next few chapters we can see some actions!**


	8. Chapter 4: Weiss Schnee-Initiation

**AN: Okay, so I promised there would be some actions, but damn do my characters like to monologue and talk. A bit of the Initiation starts at the end of this chapter, but most of the fighting should be in the next and the next one. Not much action this chapter, but there** _ **is**_ **a bit of a confrontation, sooo…**

Chapter 4: Weiss Schnee / Initiation

Mors opens his eyes, turns to stand and starts rolling up his fur cloak.

He has a strange way of sleeping. For him, it's like flipping a switch. He's either asleep, or awake. No drifting into slumber, no groggily waking up, no sleep-addled mind, no tossing, no turning.

No dream either.

It's a weird blink in his consciousness. He just closes his eyes, opens them, sees the changes in his surroundings and knows he's slept. It gets him enough rest to get his body and mind back to peak condition or, as good as they can get, but never enough to find the joy in sleeping. It's very convenient, though, for situations where he doesn't have a lot of down time and needs to be alert at the moment notice. Those situations really push a person to cut down on transitional times between rest and action. And Mors, well, he had a lot of practice.

After tucking in the cloak and put away his duffel bag which, turned out to be indeed in the locker room yesterday, Mors goes through his morning rituals and takes a walk around the campus. The sun is just starting to rise, and the moon is still visible. The morning autumn air has a bit of chill in it, but nothing his coat can't handle. He walks to the landing dock, finds a comfortable spot to sit down and watches dawn unfolds over the mini sea.

And he just sits there with a blank expression on his face, unmoving, barely blinking, watching the golden sunlight slowly fills up the water, taking steady, steady breaths. No one can tell what is going through Mors's mind. It can't be said for certain whether the whole picture looks eerily quiet or restfully peaceful.

.

.

After a while the sun eventually grows fully out of the horizon, and Mors breaks out of his reverie with a sigh.

So he begins to live…

* * *

When he gets back the students are already mostly up. He exchanges greetings with Jaune and waits for the blond to go through his morning process. They go on to grab breakfast at the dining hall. Unsurprisingly, Mors's plates have enough food to feed 3 growing teenagers, and he chows them down steadily with no sign of him getting full. What _is_ surprising, is that just two tables away from where Jaune and Mors are sitting, a redhead girl dresses in white and pink who is about Ruby's size, is matching his food size, in pancakes.

Mors can respect that. It's not the healthiest of breakfast, but you aren't exactly looking for nutrition values when it comes to pancakes. The girl keeps putting the goods in her mouth while chatting away cheerily to a boy in green Mistral shirt with black hair with a pink streak; no indication of her stopping on both fronts. The boy seems used to his companion antics, though. He keeps his right ear pointed at the girl while his eyes focused on his food and eats slowly without a hint of strain, distraction nor annoyance.

The girl is Nora, and the boy is Ren, according to Jaune; he talked to them yesterday. He and Mors are moving through the room to find his locker; locker 636. Jaune swore up and down that he did _not_ explicitly remember putting his gear in said locker; he would have remembered counting that high. But the note he has does indeed have 636 written on it, so did Jaune encode his note?

Anyway, the duo is from Sanctum, which apparently is Mistral's Primary Combat School, which apparently is the school people go to before moving on to the Academies. This is the way huntsmen are trained in the three kingdoms except for, guessed it, Atlas. Always the hipster, Atlas Academy _is_ the PCS as well as the Academy. It is actually quite clever, organizing like that. This way, the training in Atlas becomes a one-track program; effective, uninterrupted, optimized and straight into military servitude. Hard for grown teenagers with somewhat solidified traits to jump onto the middle of it, hard for invested students to jump off the program half-way. Mors was pretty surprised when he saw Weiss Schnee here in Beacon losing her shit over Ruby.

The surprise still lingers a bit when he sees her talking to a crimson red hair girl in bronze armor.

And it seems she's surprised to see him too.

Whatever Weiss Schnee was about to say to Red Hair died before it can become syllables. Even from a distance Mors can see the girl stiffens up, a flash of panic dashes through her features. Red Hair notices it too. She turns to look at them, and realizes right away who is the one having an effect on the heiress. Red Hair frowns slightly, but makes a polite smile and dips her head as an acknowledgement to them. She's about to turn back to her friend when Weiss Schnee mutters something that looks like an 'excuse me' and make a beeline towards Mors.

"Jaune, how about asking the girl in red ponytail for a little direction?" Mors pats on Jaune shoulder.

"Hmmm?"

"That girl in white seems like she wants to have a private conversation with me. Can you keep her friend company for a bit please? Start with 'Hi, I'm Jaune' and end with 'Thank you'." Mors indicates towards Red Hair. Jaune walks on while looking uncertainly back at him.

"What about the in between parts?"

"I'm not entirely sure. Maybe compliment her eyes? Try the 'short, sweet, rolls off the tongue' thing; that was kinda cool."

Jaune hesitates for a bit, then nods, takes a deep breath and strides towards Red Hair. Good man.

Weiss Schnee completes her approach just as Jaune leaves.

"Weiss Schnee; Schnee Dust Extraction, Processing and Application Conglomerate; SDC heiress candidate" she does a small curtsy, then crosses her arms "what are you doing here?"

"Morskoy Mertvetsov; no affiliation; low priority Atlesian citizenship" Mors nods crisply, then knocks a quick thump below his left shoulder with his right fist. The heiress purses her lips when Mors confirms his name "I'm helping my friend Jaune over there find his locker; locker 636"

"No! I mean what are _you_ doing _here_? You're mercenary, you don't have qualifications to enroll in Huntsman Academy! How did you get into Beacon?! What is your purpose here?!" The girl takes a step closer to Mors, puts one hand on her hip. Despite their differences in size and her obviously straining her neck to look Mors in the eyes, Weiss Schnee doesn't seem deterred.

Mors shrugs

"Headmaster Ozpin invited me to enroll." The Schnee girl's eyebrows shoot towards her hairline. "As for my purpose here, I supposed I'm trying to get a Huntsman license."

"I'm sorry but I doubt that. Why would the 'Deadman Walking' suddenly wants a Huntsman license? From your jobs record you're all but a deathseeker. And why would you even need one? You're way over average Huntsman level already." Mors breathes out a small sigh when he hears her using his moniker. Calling him a deathseeker also stings quite a bit. Weiss Schnee bites her thumb nail "you said Professor Ozpin invited you?" he nods. The heiress thought of something, and she pales slightly "A-are you on a job from Professor Ozpin, here at Beacon?"

"No, I paid the tuition fees like you did." Mors scratches the back of his ear. "Well Headmaster Ozpin did say I don't have to but I insisted on paying anyway. Special treatment out of nowhere is rather uncomfortable. But really," he squats down to her eyes level hugging his knees, the white hair girl clicks her tongue in annoyance, but relaxes her posture a little "I'm not on any job, and I'm legit here for the Huntsman training. And believe me when I say I'm really not that overleveled around here. Honestly, this is just me running from the past and a bad environment, kinda like you, I think."

The girl scowls

"You don't know why I'm here."

"No, but I have a general idea: something to do with your father's Yestausruhen contracts."

Weiss Schnee immediately gets in Mors face, she grabs a bundle of his coat with one hand and jabs her index finger into his shoulder with the other

"Don't you _dare_ think for a moment that because you did the job you can brag about it." she hesitates "I…I'm sorry you were the one who took it," but then tightens her grip "but that doesn't mean you can put smear on the Schnee name with it. Don't start going around telling people about Yestausruhen. I will _not_ stand to be judged by my father's action. Do whatever you want here, just keep your distance away from me."

The Schnee girl abruptly turns around and starts walking away, but after a step or two she pauses and looks back at Mors

"…There is no locker 636, the locker you're looking for is probably in section 9, row E, locker 9." Ohhhhh… Weiss turns back and continues on. Mors hears her mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like 'dolts'.

"Hey." He calls after her. She flinches ever so slightly, but turns around once more.

He pinches his index and thumb over the corner of his mouth and makes a zipping motion across the lips. Then he thinks for a bit, and proceeds to air-sew his mouth for good measure; back stitch, a very strong stitch while still aesthetically pleasing in its clean, simple look.

Weiss stares at him strangely, but then she gives a slow nod and walks back to Bronze Girl, who is chatting amicably with Mors's friend. Jaune actually looks pretty comfortable talking to the girl, leaning against the locker on his shoulder and crossing his feet. And Bronze Girl seems relaxed, too, mimicking Jaune's pose leaning back on the locker with her hands behind her back. And Jaune must be quite interesting that the girl keeps a small smile ready on her face; the smile blooms into small laughs intermittently. The two seem to be getting along swimmingly.

When Weiss gets back to her friend, taps on Jaune shoulder and points him at Mors, Jaune is still in his friendly mood. He starts to do introduction, and receives a reply, but a very curt one, curt enough to kill the whole chummy atmosphere. Red Hair stands back up, her smile got a little politer and a little less genuine. Jaune scratches his head awkwardly, then apparently decides he doesn't have high enough social skill points for this check, promptly beats a hasty retreat after stammering out some parting words.

"So, how did it go?" Mors asks as Jaune approaches.

Jaune puts on a little smile "She was… she was nice. Very friendly and easy to laugh. You wouldn't believe it, but the whole 'short, sweet and rolls off the tongue' thing actually works!" he starts towards a direction, Mors falls along "Her name's Pyrrha Nikos, by the way. She's from Mistral. Apparently, she's on the front of the Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box! That's a huge deal! They only do that for star athletes and cartoon characters!" Jaune taps on Mors chest for emphasis "The girl seems really modest about it though."

Mors bobs his head and hum his acknowledgement

"That's really nice. But I was more of asking about your locker location, actually."

Jaune pauses, the small smile contorts into a more sheepish one, he puts his hands in his hoodie's pockets.

"Right…Sooooo…it's the dumbest thing that you would actually laugh at the dumbness of it. I mean, I don't know what came over me, but it turns out to be a suuuuper small lapse in reasoning that we find ourselves in-"

"You had the paper upside down?"

"I had the paper upside down" Jaune hangs his head in defeat "how did you figure that out?"

"Weiss Schnee told me." Whether he seems surprised because the heiress can figure it out without any clue or because the cold and curt girl was actually helpful, only Jaune knows.

The intercom crackles into life and Professor Goodwitch informs the first year to gather at the cliff for initiation. The colors quickly make themselves vacant on Jaune's face and anxiety moves in in full force. It is hard for Mors to not notice. The groan his friend made was rather audible.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't think I'm ready for this."

"Well, it's ready for you regardless, so no points turning jelly here. Take big breaths" Jaune complies, Mors gives his friend a slap on the back; the boy stumbles a few steps forward, but stops his shaking "Focus on what you need to do next, think in actions, not values. Let's get your gear and go grab mine and head for the cliff, we have some time."

* * *

As the student gather at the cliff, they are met by the headmaster himself, one hand on the cane and the other holding a mug, taking occasional sips from it. Professor Goodwitch is standing nearby, looking prim and proper as ever and tapping away on her scroll. Mors hasn't had the chance to greet them ever since he had arrived at Beacon, but appearing too familiar with the professors in front of the students is probably not a good idea. He would like to greet them properly, still, they did come all the way to Atlas to personally invite him after all, so when they look at his direction, he settles for a wide grin and a small bow towards each of them. Professor Ozpin raises his mug slightly and professor Goodwitch tilts her head in acknowledgement. He would find a chance to talk to the professors later, he brought gifts.

The students are assigned to stand on small silver platforms facing towards the cliff. Mors spots Ruby standing a few platforms away waving at him, the girl looks rather energetic today, must be quite excited for the initiation then. Mors waves back enthusiastically, then taps on Jaune shoulder to direct the blond boy towards their mutual friend. Jaune hasn't got out of his trepidation entirely, so he can only manage a slight grin and a small wave then goes back to study the cliffside intensely. Mors is about to run another pep talk through his friend when the headmaster speaks up.

"For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." He looks over to professor Goodwitch, who then takes over. Did they rehearse this or something?

"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of 'teams.'" There are such rumors? Well, he supposes he wasn't really around during the gossip hours. Does Jaune kn- oooooh you little Nevermore brain, if you think you can get off with that guilty look… Eh, it doesn't really matter, he guesses. "Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates... _today_."

Mors thinks he hears Ruby yells something.

The headmasters once again take over the speech. They definitely rehearsed this... Mors can kinda understand that. It's an important event considering.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well." Mmhmm, that's reasonable. Mors reckons he will team up with Jaune. The dude doesn't seem too good in combat, but that can be fixed, all the easier that he also uses straight sword. The important thing is Jaune seems like he has his heart at the right place; also, they get along pretty well. Now what does Mors know about shield combat…

"That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."

…Well slap his ass and call him Molly, guess they are doing icebreaking, then. Ruby vocalizes Mors thoughts rather well with a big 'WHAT!?'. Beacon is not going her way at all, huh. The headmaster makes no sign of registering the silver eyes girl's dismay.

"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path... or you _will_ **die**." The professors aim their gazes at Mors at the last few words.

Mors frowns at this. He doesn't like it. Either the headmaster is laying it extra thick today or he has just confirmed the possibility of fatality, which is very unnecessary for the test the way Mors sees it. But then again, he strokes his face, the students here all went through screenings to get into Beacon, so the hostiles here may not pose much of a threat to them, and this is just a way to keep them from holding their punches. Also, Mors supposes he's not getting out of risking his life that easy that fast, and this is far from being one of his jobs. He hears his blond friend gulps loudly and turns to give the boy a reassuring nod, whatever good that does. Then he takes out the mask hanging by his belt and put it on.

Hmm…

Professor Ozpin elaborates some more on their mission: find an abandoned temple, there are relics, pick one and return with it to the cliff, then tells them to get into position.

The platforms start to catapult the student into the forest below. Mors takes off the Gravity Dust Ring on Tsvetok. The platform under his feet groans at the extra weight. Jaune in his anxiety doesn't pay attention to what is happening and tries to ask professor Ozpin about landing strategy, to which the professor answer proves unsatisfactory to the boy. Eventually Jaune's platform shoots off and throws the unsuspecting teen into the air. Looks like he is very unconfident about his landing. Mors turn is next, he will try to catch up and see if he need to save Jaune from falling damage. He feels the platform pushes against his feet and with a loud 'CLANG', launches him into the air.

All two meters high and five meters far. He lands with a loud 'THUD', nowhere near the cliff edge, sending up small clouds of dust and spreading out a slight tremor on the ground. Mors quickly pulls out Kolyuchka, puts her in reverse grip and runs to the cliff side. He is about to throw Kolyuchka towards the falling Jaune when he spots a red javelin beats him to his task, piercing Jaune's hoodie and pulling the blond down to the forest.

Mors slowly lowers his sword and walks back to the staring professors, it seems they too did not expect this. As he sheathes the smaller sword into the bigger blade, he takes a look at his platform and sees it is bended badly backwards. It appears the platform is not designed to withstand a load with the weight equivalent of a grand piano, thus breaks down before it can fully launch Mors in full gear along with his sword into the forest.

Mors nods curtly when he gets the general idea of the situation. He goes to the edge of the cliff and stabs Tsvetok into the ground, just deep enough for the sword to stand on her own. Afterwards he steps onto an unlaunched platform and gives the professors a thumbs-up.

Professor Ozpin frowns and looks at him strangely

"Are you sure, ?"

"Yes, I am, headmaster."

Professor Ozpin stares at him over his glasses, then turns to the blonde professor, who gives him another look of uncertainty before pushing onto her scroll.

This time Mors flies like a bullhead.

 **And I'm cutting it here. The chapters keep getting longer and longer omg. There are so many things to write that I'm having trouble deciding what to leave out. The next chapters should be uploaded within the week.**

 **Please let me know if this is going too slow. Honestly, I don't know how to speed things up, kinda feel this is a normal pacing for me, but that's just me. I would really appreciate some inputs.**

 **Besides that maybe I should get a beta reader…**

 **As always, read and review.**


	9. Chapter 5: Initiation-Pyrrha Nikos

**A/N: And I am back! Sorry for the long wait. I got caught up in drawing illustrations for this fanfic and it turned out I have no talent for art, thus I decide to get back to the writing. Here we are with the new chapter! Some action to start off but then some characterization. So there's something for everyone?**

Chapter 5: Initiation / Pyrrha Nikos

The weightless feeling beginning to spread in his stomach informs Mors he has reached the peak of his flying arc and is starting to fall. He takes out the GDR and wears it over his waist; the weightlessness doesn't go away, but he is clearly descending much slower that he naturally should have.

After he got below the treeline and broke through a few branches to further break his fall, Mors decides he should be able to take the rest of the plunge height and takes off the GDR. Instantly he lurches downwards in courtesy of the extra gravity force, accelerating towards the ground twice as fast.

He lands with a quiet 'thud', tucking into a roll the moment his feet touch the earth. When Mors gets up from the roll, he looks back to the cliff where he was launched from, puts his right foot towards where he's looking and raises his right hand at the same direction. As soon as his palm face the cliff, the ground beneath his forwarding foot cracks, small mounds of earth jut out towards where his palm is pointing at; his upper body looks like a great force sharply yanks it forth by his extending hand, but he gives no ground. He turns back, right hand still extended to the cliff, and walks steadily towards the roaring Ursa Major.

Judging by how large the Grimm still looks even from a fair distance away, the Ursa Major seems about one and a half times taller than Mors on its hind legs and twice his width. That puts it in around the weight of a minivan, and its charge will probably hit like one, if not harder. The beast remains in its intimidation phase as Mors advances a few more steps, then drop down to rush at him when it realizes it won't be able intimidate the blue creature any further. The massive black wall of muscle and fur barrels down the collision path, building up to top speed in just a heartbeat, covering the rest of the shortening distance with a few mighty bounds, rumbling the earth along the way. With a powerful roar the bear Grimm leaps into the air, right paw sweeping towards the blue clad human, who has put down his hand and strangely enough, turn _into_ the incoming swipe. The swipe carries all the weight and speed of the Ursa Major, tearing through the space, ready to transfer all of the concentrated energy onto its target; and is moments away from impact when the monster is blown back by an even more violent force.

Tsvetok came first, then sound of the sword whooshing through the air came in hot pursuit, then winds viciously rushed in to fill the vacuum left behind by the flying blade. The sword flew in pointing upwards, the hilt would had been right where Mors had been holding out his hand. It ruthlessly smashed into the Grimm on its flat side– the edge could never withstand the collision – along the monster's length, denied all of the Ursa Major's momentum and threw it back, shattered its exoskeleton mask and proceeded to the internal skeletons in milliseconds. The angle from the cliff edge to ground is steep, so the Ursa Major doesn't fly back very far before it hits the dirt. The ground gives, then the Grimm's fats, fleshes, muscles and bones. The sound is as terrible as any supersonic impact gives off. If Mors wasn't wearing loud noise reduction earplugs and his body wasn't more durable than the average person, he would be bleeding from his ears and had his hearing permanently damaged. Still, that doesn't stop the disorientation and the ringing from bouncing around in his head. He almost drops to his knees under the combine might of vertigo and air implosion, but manages to stay afoot and stumbles his way to the crash site. When the dusts settle, the Ursa have already dissolved and only his sword remains within the mid-size crater, intact.

He made the little lady to endure extreme stress, but he knows the collision already weaken the outer blade's structure. Kolyuchka will be fine, it is very, _very_ tough; though Tsvetok is most likely to shatter the next time he pulls another maneuver like this before reforging it. The large blade is still functional, but he needs to hold onto his weapon from now. With a sharp inhale Mors picks up the greatsword, leans it on his shoulder and briskly walks in perpendicular to how his shadow is falling.

 **-Rest-**

Beacon Academy is proving to be exceeding Pyhrra Nikos's expectation.

The people here in Vale also knew of her person and her achievements. But to them, she was the top graduate from a foreign Primary Combat School in a far, distant land; a foreign star athlete of a foreign tournament. Mistral is faraway enough for her to be no more than just a well-known name and face here. At Beacon she has only gotten some awed looks and revered passing glances, caught her name floating among conversations and been requested a few autographs from rare bold individuals. Pyhrra doesn't mind publicity; it had been present so long and so frequent it is just part of her life for a while now. But it was certainly refreshing to be away from random people walking up to her just to bow for no reason, or the few who started to cry their hearts out at her mere presence, or the stalkers, or someone's video recordings she was bound to be on anywhere she went, or the fact that the places she visited were affected by her fame, sometimes for the better, sometimes…not quite so much.

Pyhrra was already happy with the diminished effect of her fame here, but what was more, she has also made some friends. Which was wonderful! People around her age back home rarely made the effort to befriend her and neither she them, as both sides knew the weight of her pedestal and the pressure of her shadow. They would not wish those things on themselves. Neither would she inflict those things on them.

But at Beacon she was actually approached with the intention to mingle. Twice! It was true Weiss Schnee approached her because of her reputation and her ability, unsurprisingly, but the offer of friendship was still a valid one; as her reputation and ability are also parts of Pyhrra Nikos, they were as good as any reasons to want to be her friend. And while it might be a little tiny bit callous, she doesn't have to worry about having her fame affects the heiress of _the_ Schnee Dust Company. Weiss was a bit overbearing, but Pyhrra thought she had a good heart. And the Schnee girl had the clearest voice, also, it was a small wonder she was a famous singer in Atlas.

Then there is Jaune Arc (short, sweet and rolls off the tongue, pff.)

Pyhrra was so used to everyone using her accomplishments or combat prowess to begin conversation with her she was caught speechlessly off guard when the scraggly blond started, with all the world's confidence in his articulation, with a compliment about her eyes. She had not thought her eyes were an attractive feature, but she would not deny the warmth that spread out in her stomach when the compliment was registered. Said warmth boiled up into laughter when she saw all the confidence swiftly crumbled away and Jaune panicked at her blank expression.

And she just kept on bursting into laughs throughout their interaction. Jaune alternated between being a bit of a doofus and displaying a sharp sense of humor. He got sheepish when he realized his goof with the locker number, but replied all cheekily when she mentioned his choice of sleeping apparel about how less is more and his face was enough to leave people imagine about his 'hot bods'. That was the other thing, he could say the most hackneyed lines with tones and expressions so appropriate that Pyhrra wondered if those lines had truly lost their charms yet, but then at times he struggled to finish a sentence without feeling self-conscious about what he was saying. It was unclear if there was a witty person buried underneath the awkwardness or an awkward teenage doing his best to build up bravado. Maybe a bit of both.

But perhaps the best impression Jaune has left on Pyhrra was that when she let it slip about her appearance on the Pumpkin Pete cover, he reacted with all the admiration given to a friend who can write with both hands, blindfolded. She was just a girl who had something interesting to show. It felt nice.

That was part of the reason why, in the midst of Grimms ground, she did not hesitate to part with her weapon to save the wailing, flailing, falling boy. She will probably be fine with Akoúo, and Miló is not that long of a hike away, but her action did raise the danger level and put her in a risky position. If she was to encounter anything beyond two mid-large size Grimms, she would most likely have to flee. Pyhrra doesn't mind, though, Jaune _really_ looked like he would not stick that landing.

As she makes her way to retrieve her arms, the Crimson Championess softly hums the tune they usually played when she entered the arena in the tournaments – it is certainly quite catchy and exciting. Pyrrha hopes she can partner with the blond Knight; he'd proven to be very pleasant company. She doesn't mind him being clearly out of his element with the huntsman trade. As long as his heart is right, he can grow, she believes; she will be delighted to help him along the way.

She is about halfway to her destination when the explosion reaches her ears. It is loud, like a stadium worth of roaring people compressed into a room, then blast out in a sharp burst. There is a barely perceptible rumble in the earth. Pyrrha imagines this was some student's doing, not the enemies', nevertheless she feels a small prick of vulnerability being without her offensive weapon. The explosion origin sounds to be somewhat to the left ahead of her, and is rather close to her goal. She quickens her pace.

 **-Rest-**

The Championess hears Jaune first, she is just a few bushes away from the blond boy. It seems someone has beaten her to her destination, Jaune is talking to the person in a rather friendly manner. It is somewhat disappointing, Jaune will not be her partner at Beacon. She is a bit more invested in the notion than she thought. She doesn't mind partnering with students other than Jaune or Weiss, but she isn't sure the other party won't mind partnering with _her_. A person like Jaune is rare for Pyrrha. Hopefully they can still be on the same team.

"So uh… was the boom you?" Jaune's voice comes from a higher elevation, is he still pinned on the tree? Pyrrha smiles ruefully. She should apologize in a moment.

"It was me." The other voice belongs to another male. It has a slight baritone quality and a heavy accent in it, although it sounds oddly muffled. Her smile drops a little.

"Oh…heh…Was…that a…standard Huntsman event?"

"I do not think so. I was in a very particular situation." There is a loud crack of tree bark breaking, followed by two heavy dull 'thud' and Jaune startled, strangely high pitch yelp. Pyrhha steps out of the bushes just in time to see the implausibly large student in blue who was with Jaune earlier climbs onto his equally oversized sword, which is neatly stabbed into and through the tree trunk, providing its owner an elevated platform.

The first thing that comes to Pyrrha's mind is the image of a bear trying to get to a beehive; an image which Jaune's blond hair only serves to enhance. She would have grin at the thought or even chuckle audibly at the duo, if not for the humor being promptly overwhelmed by the feeling of dread as soon as she sees Jaune's friend.

There is something wrong with this person.

It's not exactly dread, but she can vividly feel the lump in her throat and the unintentional tense of her muscles. She vaguely felt the same reaction back in the locker room but largely ignored it because Pyrrha Nikos knew well better than shallowly judging a person. But here looking at his gray metal mask, a face piece devoid of any details except for two pitch black eyeholes and two ventilation grooves running down from the eyes like black tear streaks, and having heard his unnervingly distorted voice, the uneasiness in Pyrrha cannot be so simply disregarded.

He had locked eyes with her after she has taken a few steps away from the bushes. They stare at each other for a few moments, she has subconsciously stopped, lowered her chin, relaxed her knees and slightly faced her side towards the giant student. After a few heartbeats that feel much too long, he breaks eye contact and looks up to Jaune, who is watching her with a confused look.

"…PYRRHA!" Jaune's voice breaks through and snaps her out of her trance. She shakes her head, it seems she has tuned out unnecessary noises in that state of mind. Has she gotten so tense?

"Y-yes Jaune?" She looks at the pinned-up blond. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I was just you know…saying hi. …Hi." The blond holds up a hand and gives a lopsided grin, Pyhrra smiles and gives a small 'Hello' back. "You okay?" She nods slowly. Jaune glance back to his friend, who has climbed down from his sword and is standing at ease with his hands visible at his side, watching them. Was he military in the past? She still feels uneasy about this student, but she is starting to get somewhat used to the feeling.

"It's the mask, isn't it?" Jaune prompts. She gets hesitant in answering, it would be terribly impolite to affirm, regardless of her misgivings. Luckily Jaune's attention is back on the blue teen "See! I'm not the only one who got creeped out by your mask! Seriously dude, would it kill to go for a little aesthetics? Get a makeover!"

"This mask is fine, it's a good mask."

"I don't deny that, but look, can't you like…I don't know, decorate? Get a theme going, you know? Something cool or fail that, cute and delightful, like a plushie bear, for example. Nobody is scared of plushie bears."

"A violent plushie bear is terrifying."

"…That is a very good point."

Pyhrra doesn't even have enough time to open her mouth when the laugh comes. She puts a hand over her mouth and guffaws quietly, sensing the tension earlier leaving with each exhale. Jaune grins at her, he gestures to the blue student

"This is Mors, don't mind the creepy stuffs, he's a pretty nice guy. Mors, this is Pyrrha." Mors dips his head at her and she replies with a small bow. "Mors said hello earlier." Jaune offers helpfully.

Suddenly Pyrrha realizes she has been very rude to the new person, Mors. She has ignored his greetings and visibly shown unwarranted wariness towards him when he had done her no offense. Granted, she could not help how she reacted, but the fact remains is that she has slighted him, and the Championess's upbringing demands she do something about it. She folds her hands in front of her and inclines her torso down one head lower.

"I am very sorry for my misconducts."

"No harm's done." Mors holds up a hand "I would take off the mask to ease your anxiety, but this article requires a lot of time to remove, and we should move on to our objective soon; so for now please manage with Jaune's vouch for me and my guarantee I will not bring harm to you, directly or by proxy." She nods assuredly. He then points to Miló "Is that your spear?"

Oh, right. "It is. Jaune, I'll take the spear out, can you lower your head a bit?" Jaune complies, muttering about feeling like a damn hanging roast duck. Pyhrra snickers, uses her semblance to pull out her red spear and flies it into her hand. Jaune lands on Mors's blade with an 'oof', then jumps down to the ground. She approaches the duo as Mors pulls his great blade free and Jaune pats down the back of his jeans; he looks around behind her.

"So… you haven't found a partner yet?"

She shakes her head, grabbing her elbow with one hand.

"Unfortunately, no. You are the first people I've encountered so far." Pyhrra leaves her expectation for the alternative outcome of finding Jaune unsaid; there is no need to make others feel guilty.

Jaune glances at Mors, and scratches his head awkwardly

"Oh. Uh…that's…unfortunate." He winces.

"Weiss Schnee was here shortly before your arrival" Mors speaks up. He then points to a thicket behind him"She left in that direction not long ago. We might be able to catch up, I know how to track." Pyhrra didn't miss the implication that these two are willing to accompany her on her quest to find a partner, even if it means making detours. She feels guilty about being on guard with Mors earlier, but figures a grateful smile is a better thing to give.

"Yeah… well… about that" Jaune enters haltingly "When I was uh... treed I actually saw Ruby not really far off that way. Weiss Schnee dragged her off. So…yeah, pickles." He shuffles uncomfortably from being the bearer of the bad news.

Pyrrha sags her shoulders a little, she supposes she was unrealistic with her expectation of partner. There are many students in the initiation and she locked her preference to only 2 people. Perhaps it was a bit imposing now that she thinks about it. And speak of imposing… she looks at the blond and blue duo and grins reassuringly

"It's okay, Jaune. I am bound to find a partner eventually, and I believe working well with anyone the situation assigns to me is also the intention of this exercise." Jaune furrows his eyebrows "You two should move on to finish the mission. Please don't worry about me, I am quite capable of handling myself."

Mors looks at her for a bit; she really wonders what is so unsettling about this person, and then nods curtly and turn to his partner, who appears more reluctant.

"I…okay, listen, uh…" the Knight rubs his head "I'm sure you're pretty much on Wonder Woman level of hitting stuffs." He gestures to Miló, then back to his hoodie "But it doesn't mean you have to deal with dangers alone, right? I mean, unless you want to. Strong, independent woman, I get it. I just think extra hands couldn't hurt, could it? Ah well I mean I can at least offer more eyes and ears, and maybe distract the monsters? ...The point is, we can go together if you want to? I don't feel right leaving you when you haven't been sorted out yet."

The Championess feels the genuineness creeps its way into her smile. It was one of the sweeter things a person can say to Pyrrha Nikos. Truly, she wishes she was Jaune's partner. She shouldn't impose on them any further, but doesn't feel so bad about her situation now. She is about to assure Jaune again it is alright to go forth without her when the Knight's face lit up and he snaps his fingers

"Oh right! How about this, wandering around the forest to find someone still single seems pretty chancy to me, now that I think about it. The logical thing would be heading to the temple because everyone will have to go there either way, don't you think? You would have much better chance finding someone there. So maybe we're heading in the same direction, after all" His expression suddenly turns smug, he leans one arm on the greatsword Mors timely provides and wiggles his eyebrows "You fancy some escort, dove?"

Pyrrha giggles, ah…oh well, there is truth in his reasoning.

"I'll have two escorts, please. Please take care of me." Jaune grins and looks up to his partner in querry for Mors opinion, the colossus's nod is perfectly identical to every single one he gave before.

A gunshot ringing through the air snaps the atmosphere in half and quickly brings them back to the current situation. She lets out a deep sigh to get into her combat mindset. She almost failed when she saw Jaune sucked in a big breath and anxiety once again adorn his face.

"We should move, then." Mors says, heaving the greatblade onto his shoulder and starts to walk towards what must be North. Pyrrha gives a silent nod and follows after him. Jaune, back to his nervous self, takes up the rear, worriedly look around at the direction of the noise. In her absent-mind of trying to locate the source of the gunshot, Pyhrra pushes aside a particularly large tree branch and let it go when she walks past.

Jaune, in his absent-mind of thinking about his survival rate in this den of monsters, wholeheartedly receives the wooden whip his green eyes companion sent his way, with his face.

 **Well 3.5k words…this might be my greatest achievement or my worst piece of writing, but I can't help it, I don't feel like there is any detail I can cut out. Also, I try to make things fair to the readers in the way that if they pay some attention, they can kinda predict some parts of the story. It's a debate whether I'm succeeding. I guess I'll just keep writing.**

 **Read and review!**


	10. Chapter 6: Aura

Chapter 6: Aura

Jaune Arc is beginning to think he _might_ be in a bit over his head.

For a while, he'd had a pretty lucky run.

Falling to his death? Saved by what had to be the best trick shot in the four kingdoms history. Mad skilled _and_ ultra nice, Pyrrha Nikos is basically about as rare as those mythical flame birds in one of the stories he read to his sisters, and by some very favourable roll of dices he managed get onto this girl's radar, enough to warrant a save-my-butt from her.

Stuck in the middle of Grimms neighborhood? Somehow in the not insignificant amount of time Jaune'd wasted just hanging out – literally - on a tree, he encountered the grand total of **zero** Grimms.

Involved in a deadly contest? Well, how about his buddy for a partner to carry Jaune through the ordeal? Despite the ridiculously loose condition to partner up, somehow he, pinned high up from the ground, was the first person Mors ran into. For some reasons the big guy was giving off vibes so metal he might as well have magnets sticking to his body. And if the explosion that'd prolly been heard by half of damn Vale was how Mors does his thing, boy aren't the goth furballs in for a treat from this guy.

For realzies, Jaune had no idea what deeds of the past life had earned him this series of karmic favor.

But he thinks the ominous gunshot was the sign said series of good fortune had expired.

Case in point, the tree branch.

The blond knight groans as he sits up from sprawling on the ground, one hand rubbing his sore face. Turns out it didn't take much to ground one Jaune Arc. He prays to all aspects of Mr. Oum that this was about how hard the monsters in this career would hit, though he knows all of them are prolly laughing at his prayer at the moment.

Pyrrha has rushed to his spot shortly after she heard the whack and is now, fretting

"Jaune! I am so so so sorry. Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

He accepts the girl's hand and pulls himself up, then dusts off his jeans the second time of the day "I'm okay, Pyrrha. My fault too for not paying attention." He brushes a few fingers to his cheeks, where the redhead had set her eyes on and a slight sting's poking, the fingers comes back a bit red "Tis' but a scratch." He grins disarmingly.

A few steps away Mors has lowered his sword. He has switched to holding the sword with one hand, tapping the tip to the dirt in slow beats and watches them passively. Even for someone as inexperienced as Jaune, he can intuitively know that's the big guy's ready-for-combat pose. The sight of something so large and so heavy being handled with such casual ease rustles Jaune's timmies a bit; but then, he guesses it isn't like normal people's standards applies to Huntsman. Kinda makes you wonder how they managed to raise the bar that high…

"….activate your aura?" Jaune turns back to the curious girl in front of him

"I'm sorry wha?"

"Your aura" Red eyebrows climb to their owner forehead. Uh oh...

"Gesundheit?" Please by all that are holy let the diversion works…

Pyrrha looks nonplussed for a few seconds, then she breaks into the smile that sends inner Jaune groaning: he too smiles like that whenever he watches his adorable little sisters, with crumbs on their cheeks and half bitten cookies in their hand, trying to pin blames of eating unauthorized treats on a cookie monster who raided the kitchen.

The redhead speaks slowly

"Jaune…Do you know what Aura is?" He really doesn't like where this conversation is heading, which is to a landmine of difficult questions that may expose some delicious scoops Jaune very much doesn't want to let slip. The knight looks over to his partner, who returns his gaze (at least he think so?) steadily and continues on with his damn Drum Hero minigame with the dirt. Staying focused he said, what kind of crap is that?

Jaune's on his own, he needs to go on the offensive.

"Pshhh… Of course I know what Aura is…" he points emphatically at Pyrrha "Do _you_ know what Aura is?"

The smile widens and she shakes her head. The jig is up so bad he might have better chance convincing dirt it's actually water. There's a point in a man's life where he has to know when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em. And boy isn't it folding time right now. Well… if it's these two, he _might_ still be okay should the cat decides to leave its bag.

"Aura, in a way, is a manifestation of our soul…" and Jaune knows, there is probably not a being more graceful than this girl in front of him "…it bears our burdens and shields our hearts. Have you ever felt you were being watched without knowing that someone was there?"

"Uh.. yeah?"

"That's your aura. A kind of sixth sense, if you will. And with practice, our Aura can even be our shield. Everyone has it, even animals."

That explains how the Huntspeeps are able to go toe to toe with the monsters. It's a pretty cool thought: his very own hidden superpower.

"So is that why the Grimms are so strong? They have like naturally uh.. usable Aura?"

The girl shakes her head

"The monsters we fight lack a soul, they are manifestations of anonymity. They know only darkness, while we know light."

"That's… kinda vague…"

"Hmm…that is true. I do not understand it very well either. I think, to have a soul you will need to have both light and dark in you, like how people only seems complete if they both know joy as well as they know melancholy."

Pyrrha takes her shortsword (it's a shortsword now… huh) into one hand, holds up her other and casually push the sword tips into the free hand's palm. Very faintly, the girl's hand glows, although it makes no sense, black. The blade point pokes deep into the palm, but somehow can not break through Pyrrha skin. It's like she is wearing an impenetrable black glove. Jaune watches the whole act in fascinated horror.

"When one can understand the light and dark within themselves" Pyrrha continues, putting her weapon back "one can control their own aura, and expel it out like an outward force to protect themselves."

"Ohhh… Kinda like a force field!"

"Yes, you can think of it like that" the girl laughs "now close your eyes" gently, Pyrrha holds onto Jaune hands with hers "and focus on my words."

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality." and suddenly Jaune feels it.. a connection, of sort. Like something is steadily knocking on the door to his… everywhere! The palms of his hands, the pit of his stomach, the back of his mind, his entire being!

"Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all." the words doesn't really make sense, but they make Jaune understand…something (this is pretty frustrating); like he has always known it but only notice it now. It's as if he's not only listening to Pyrrha's words, but also to the _ideas_ behind them. He…or something of his, starts to…pulse? to the tempo of the knock, harmonizing with whatever's on the other side.

"Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul," and they connects, him and Pyrrha. Suddenly he is aware of something that has always been inside of him, seeing a similar thing of Pyrrha through their link. He feels like he understands the girl on the other side much better than he should be, like he has known her for quite some times. "and by my shoulder, protect thee."

White glow visibly flares out of Jaune's body. He feels strong; really really strong. Like he can take a thousand tree branches to the face no problemo now. The sting on his cheek has completely disappeared, with not even the phantom pain remains. It is the most amazing experience Jaune has ever been through in 17 years of his life. Suddenly the Huntsman business doesn't seem so impossible anymore. He is actually a little bit excited for some action now, who would've thought. And he has the lovely redhead to thank for all… omg she looks like she's about to tip over.

"Pyrrha!"

The girl exhales slowly, and smiles at him

"It's all right. I used my Aura to unlock yours, but the energy that protects you now is your own. You have a lot of it"

"O-okay" Jaune inspects his glowing hands again, the awe still hasn't washed away "Wow…"

"Are you fit for combat?" Somehow Jaune has completely forgotten about his very big friend with a very big sword wearing a very conspicuous outfit over there. And he's not the only one it seems. Pyrrha jumps a bit at Mors voice

"I am, please don't worry. As long as it's not a long lived Grimm, the monsters pose no threat to me."

"Noted. If we encounter the aged variants, please let me take front line. Let us move on then?" They nod. Mors hefts his sword back onto his shoulder and starts walking. A few steps later he looks back at Pyrrha

"Is the process of unlocking other people's aura usually very taxing?"

Pyrrha puts a finger on her lips

"I'm not too clear on the matter. I only did it twice, once for my cousin and the second time for Jaune. Jaune's unlocking was a bit more draining" Well hello there uncomfortable feeling of guilt. Pyrrha put an assuring hand on Jaune arm. "But it's nothing serious. I do hear cases where one was bedridden for an entire day, however."

"I see, do you know what determines the repercussions?"

"I don't know, sorry"

"I understand, please don't worry about it."

-Rest-

Glynda looks up from her scroll. Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie will be partners for their years at Beacon. Quite a good fit, considering their long history together, and just as intended.

Despite what Ozpin explained to the students, the platforms were set to shot at certain angles, increasing the odds of certain pairs forming. The seemingly fast and loose rule is to merely keep the student flexible and accept their partner more willingly. It seems more acceptable if it happens by chance, Ozpin reasoned.

Although it is almost certain the very badly compatible students will have no chance of partnering up with each other. Of course, the pairs wouldn't necessarily form as they are intended. Miss Rose was supposed to pair with Mr. Arc, a competent guidance for a bumbling Huntsman and an anchor to reality for a naive young girl with very potent power. Miss Schnee was supposed to pair with Miss Nikos, a friend with no fear of pressure from her partner's shadow and a figure of humility for a sheltered child. And Mr. Morskoy…

It was quite a mistake they've made

"Miss Valkyrie has partnered with Mr. Lie. With that…" the headmistress sighs "all of the pairs are set. Miss Nikos is the odd one out"

Ozpin pauses from watching his scroll, clicks his tongue and joins Glynda in the sighing activity.

"That is quite unfortunate… it will make our plan for this situation much more unpleasant to carry out."

"I'm not sure about this set up anymore Ozpin. I don't know if the Council will allow the exception anymore. They weren't too happy with Miss Nikos enrollment here back then; and now the pride of Mistral is going to be without a partner. They will _not_ deal with the backlash from the East. It's much easier to put Miss Nikos on the first ship back to Mistral...Oum I don't think they will want to take their chances with even Atlas were it Miss Schnee who was left out."

"Maybe not Miss Schnee, but Miss Nikos…they have bigger incentives to keep her here than their unwillingness to deal with Mistral outrage" Glynda purses her lips when she hears what Ozpin's implying "... Perhaps there is a silver lining in this, Glynda. Miss Nikos working solo might be for the better with the plan we have for her."

"You are asking a lot from a 17 years old girl."

"...I know." Ozpin drops his head a little.

"I don't like this Ozpin."

"Neither am I, Glynda dear. But look at all the options we do not have."

Glynda sighs. Ozpin is right, he always is.

Every year they made especially sure that an _even_ , multiplication of 4 number of students were accepted into Beacon. Every student would have a partner and a team. A singled student would be very troublesome. And with the amount of special acceptance this year, they were extra careful about balancing the student number. Mr. Morskoy, Mr. Arc, Miss Belladonna and Miss Rose had filled up the quota nicely; but then suddenly 3 students they have already accepted dropped out near the start of the semester.

Mr. Black, Miss Sustrai and Miss Fall.

It wasn't hard to find out what happened. Apparently Mr. Black and Miss Sustrai had sustained severe injuries from a Grimms attack during their trip to Atlas. It seemed Mr. Black was too excited for the upcoming semester that he started his Huntsman career early. He went on an excursion with someone he knew and dragged Miss Sustrai along. The situation went sour and neither of them would get well enough by the time school starts. Word is they would enroll at the closer to home Haven Academy to recuperate while attending school there. Miss Fall, who seemed close to the two naturally stayed with them.

And such they were left with this mess.

Glynda lets out another frustrated sigh when she thinks about the fiasco. She does not want to be mad at the two reckless students who are already very hurt. Medical records from Facility 3 said that the boy got a broken arm, a dislocated, fractured shoulder and a puncture in his diaphragm; the girl had a collarbone almost shattered and half of her rib cage fractured, along with a large, thankfully not critically deep cut from her shoulder down to her hip. The Grimms they encountered must have been very powerful to blow through their auras and do that level of damage.

… And very clever too, considering the wounds seemed quite deliberate.

For some reason, Glynda could not help but glancing at the cliff edge, where there is an enormous gash on the terrain; mark of a massive slab of metal forcibly tear through the earth to speed off like a missile, promising doom to whatever lies at the end of its path.

 **A/N**

 **I'm back guys! Life has gotten into the way too much but now I'm here to continue what I started! Let us pray that I will have the strength to finish my story.**

 **So just some trivials about my version of RWBY universe**

 **In Atlas, Facility 1 is the central administrative building; Facility 2 is police headquarter; Facility 3 is something like the central hospital; Facility 4 is the Fire Department head and Facility 5 is our favorite Atlas Academy, which also double as the military command center. Think of them as megastructures that handle the essentials of a city nation.**

 **For the reader who said Mors is something of a gentle giant, that is absolutely what I am going for. But he can't be too gentle what's with the profession he has, can he ;)**

 **For the reader who asked if Mors is going to be in team JNPR, I hope this chapter somewhat answer your question. But read on and find out. All I will say is that I will try to keep the team name somewhat meaningful.**

 **So do you think Yang would be a tigress or a dragoness were she to have an animal motif?**


	11. Chapter 7: Team (Part 1)

Chapter 7: Team (Part 1)

"You think this is it?"

Mors looks away from the mural carved on the side of a mouth of a dark cave. The depiction is ominous enough: armed figures fighting against a large scorpion, a deathstalker most likely.

There's an obvious conclusion.

Mors turns to Jaune while tapping on the mural

"Likely this is a deathstalker… " Jaune looks confused "...a scorpion Grimm's lair. If there is a deathstalker in there and it's the same one in this drawing, it will be approaching the elder type. I do not know if Beacon allows a very dangerous Grimm like this to haunt their testing ground, but I do not believe this is our objective. There are reasonings to otherwise, but…"

"I don't really want to go and find out either" Jaune glances into the cave and swallows emphatically. "How...uh…how dangerous are these scorpion Grimm?"

"There shouldn't be any in Atlas so I have never dealt with one. From what I know, deathstalkers' threat level is usually medium low at best. They are large and their shells are hard, they have strong pincer and very venomous stinger, but they are clumsy and have limited movements." Mors looks over to Pyrrha, whose Mistralian origin should provide more understanding on the species.

"Right...and they are even more sensitive to negative emotions than other Grimms. I've heard that an old enough deathstalker can sense someone being just slightly upset." She smiles at Jaune "We used to be told as kids, that if you cry too much, the deathstalker will know and come take you away. It was very effective" the girl chuckles "I didn't dare a sniff every time my mother told me that."

"Yish… talk about happy healthy child rearing. And here I had to make funny faces and bribed my sisters every time I wanted the waterworks stopped." Jaune scratches his chin "This opens up possibilities…"

"Please don't." Pyrrha giggles "I'm sure your funny faces works splendidly already."

"Well…" Jaune brushes his nose "I _am_ a natural at weird and unusual expressions… That wasn't as impressive as I imagined." He looks back at the cave "So why do you say this one might be very dangerous?"

"It's the age. The older the Grimm gets, the more evolved it becomes." Mors answers "They gets more effective, bigger, stronger,... _smarter_."

"W-well, that's enough convincing me not to go in there." Jaune laughs disjointedly "Let's move on then?"

They start to move away from the cavern. "Besides, it makes sense when you think about it." Jaune continues, gesturing behind him "There haven't been anyone else all this time." Pyrrha nods in agreement "so chances a…"

" **HELP**!"

Mors head snaps to the cave entrance. The scream came deep from within. It wasn't loud but there was no mistaken the cry for help of a young man, and his desperation was palpable.

He quickly turns to his companions:

"Time is limited, I will go in there to help whoever is calling out, I need to know if you will come with me or you will not. If you're coming, stay close; if you're not, do not rush after me afterwards and go let the professors know."

Pyrrha is wearing a similar expression when she first encountered Mors.

Jaune has turned noticeably pale, his neck tenses up to the point his head starts to shake - he shouldn't come.

"Go get the professors" Mors tells the two decisively and walks briskly to the cave,Tsvetok ready in hand. He is 3 or 4 steps along when Pyrrha grabs him by his wrist and makes him stop.

"W-wait…" The girl jerkily lets go of his wrist and rubs her hand together "This sounds…wrong. There's something about the voice that's terribly…unnatural. I'm not very sure… You shouldn't go in there alone."

" **HELP! PLEASE, SOMEBODY, HELP!** "

Mors could not catch the unnaturalness Pyrrha talked about. It really does sound like a young man tearing out his throat to call for help, and it gets more frantic by the minutes.

"We don't have a lot of choices. I don't want to forego the chance there is an actual person in there. I'll go in, I can handle myself."

" **PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! SOMEBODY!** "

"I'll come with you." Jaune speaks up shakily. Pyrrha looks to him in surprise and she seems about to object when the blond cuts her off with a head shake "professor Ozpin said it didn't he? You can die here, the professors won't help."

" I don't think I'll ever feel right if I walk away now. I can't do much, but at least I can watch your back." He smiles weakly at Mors.

Pyrrha bites her lip as she takes her short sword and shield to her hands. She gestures with her shield for Mors to lead "But let us be _very_ careful, please?"

Mors nods

"Stay close."

And in they go.

-REST-

Pyrrha is getting more and more uneasy by the minutes. They have walked for quite a distance into the cave, to the point lights from the entrance are condensed to only a small dot now.

True to his word, Mors moves quietly and carefully, constantly checking the walls, floor and ceiling, pointing out terrain defects that might pose trip hazards. He leads a fairly quick pace, however.

Behind him, Jaune carries a torch - he made it himself - which is the group's source of light. Even in low lights condition she can see how tense her friend is: the glistening of sweat on his neck, the white-knuckled grip on his sword handle, the way he keeps his eyes glued to Mors every movement. She wants to do something to ease his mind, but she herself is also on high alert. The screams had affected them all.

And so is the absence of it.

Soon after they enter the cave the cries abruptly stopped all together. Everyone noticed it. Immediately, alarms went off in Pyrrha's mind. The natural thought should've been something had happened to the distressed person and they need to even further increase their pace. But if she was to be honest, at that moment it started to feel less like a rescue and more like a trap. She could see Mors having the same thoughts when he stopped, waited a bit and looked back at the cave entrance. Pyrrha was certain, if Mors would start turning around and walking away, she would follow suit with no hesitation or second thought; but she knew better.

The what-if did not allow them to leave.

So they pressed on, with unsettled minds. The entrance is no longer visible now. With their visibility being as far as the torch light can reach, there is no inclination whether this tunnel goes on any longer. But, they should be very close to whoever was calling out. Any further in, the cries wouldn't have reached the entrance for them to hear in the first place. Yet there is still no sign of anyone, or anything for that matter. She speaks up

"Voices couldn't have travelled from much further from here"

Mors pauses and checks at the surroundings

"That is true."

"Mors, buddy… Isn't this getting a bit too sketchy man?" Jaune whispers.

"Ye…"

Pyrrha hears it too: faint, soft sobbings, right in front of them just beyond the fire glow.

But it is of a girl now.

Pyrrha feels like she's gone pass mulling over how much she dislikes the situation. She just readies her weapons and gets into battle stance. Jaune hears it and also unsheathes his sword. He is inexperienced, she can tell by how he holds his sword.

Mors puts his sword into both hands, but one hand actually grips onto the sword spine in the gap between the blade and the guards, holding the weapon more like a sword-spear, which speaks volumes about this person skills. Although tunnel is quite spacious, swinging a sword twice her height conventionally in here is still bound to be problematic. This is how he adapts to it.

Mors signals them to move forward, and they tread slowly towards the whimperings.

Then everything snaps.

The masked student silently points to a small bump in the earth, just subtle enough to to be out of notice, but still high enough to trip a person out of balance. Jaune, however, apparently is too preoccupied with what's in front of them that he just mindlessly make the motion of stepping over without looking. Pyrrha barely manages to rush up and catch the blond boy mid-fall, but Jaune dropped his torch attempting to brace for impact.

As soon as darkness is upon them. Blinks into existence is a dimly glowing orange object, shaped like a tomoe, just about five leaps from their position. In the vast blanket of black, the single glow is oddly mesmerizing.

But Pyrrha knows a Deathstalker tail when she sees one.

An ear rattling screech rings down the tunnel; and the tail lunges forward at incredible speed, making a trail of ghostly light. Pyrrha has already pulled Jaune back and raised her shield. The tail is massive, just the glowing part must be over half her height, certainly more than her shield can cover. She only needs to block the very tip, however. Akoúo̱ should hold up…

The incoming attack never made it to her, though. There was deep hum of a large object moving through the air and with a resounding thump, the only light in the cavern jerked abruptly to their left and bounced back when it must've hit the wall. They were again showered in deafening screech, more out of anger than pain.

"Jaune! Pyrrha! Are you with each other?" Mors voice rises up amidst the beast screeching. It was quite booming, but it was completely void of any emotion, as if the speaker wasn't even in the state of battle.

"We are!"

"What's going on!? "

"Pyrrha, shoot it!" Mors calls out, seems he's about six strides ahead of her, slightly to her right, should be right in front of the Deathstalker. She braces Miló against her shield and fires three rounds at the glowing tail tip.

The muzzle flashes briefly blast away small pockets of darkness, enough for Pyrrha to identify their adversary. It is gigantic, certainly double the size of an average Deathstalker, maybe more. The shots she fired did nothing but sparking off their target. It is definitely an elder Grimm, which mean they wouldn't do well to fight it, not in here.

Mors has the same thoughts, as he has put his sword on his back and made a full sprint away from the scorpion Grimms and towards her and Jaune by the time the second and third flashes lit up. The rumble of the earth tells her that the Grimm is in pursuit.

Suddenly she feels a large arm wraps around her waist, yanks her off her feet, and continues carrying her over the shoulder as she flies rapidly backwards. Her first instinct is to stab whoever the arm belongs to with her spear. But it is obvious who is carrying her, away from the beast chasing them. By the 'oof' that escaped Jaune she wagers her friend is on the other shoulder.

"It's Mors. Keep shooting! I need directions"

Pyrrha realizes as much, so she props her elbows onto Mors back to keep herself up, rests Miló stock against her shoulder, and release streams of bullet back at their pursuer. The bullets do nothing but further fuel the Grimm's aggression, and the instability prevents her from aiming for the vitals. Still, the occasional strays close to the eyes do help keep the beast back a bit.

They are keeping pace with the great strides of the monster, but in the end there is a limit on how fast Mors can run. It is incredibly difficult to run full tilt down a twisting tunnel with uneven terrain, carrying what has to be almost half a ton, using only sporadic gun flashes for vision. Slowly but surely, the Deathstalker is gaining on them.

"I see the exit." Mors speaks up from her left, fortunately he doesn't seem out of breath.

"What about the other people?!" Jaune yells out. Pyrrha feels her throat tighten up, there is nothing they can do.

"I looked, there wasn't anyone" Mors words quickly dissolve the forming lump, but at the same time send chills down her neck, although the thought has been on the back of everyone's mind "It was the Grimm."

"...That's messed up man!" Jaune's voice breaks a little from going too high.

She hears the Grimm answers to Jaune's disapproval with an angry roar. It is catching up, its frame is getting bigger with each flash. Just a few more strides, they will be in the beast's tail striking range; and if the Grimm is smart enough to know how to lure its prey, chances are it will not miss.

She can start to vaguely feel daylight reflecting off the walls. The tunnel passage is getting progressively brighter rapidly. Soon enough, the telltale glows of the Grimm's eyes lights up the haunting red as they meet sunlight.

They are close to the exit, but their pursuer is closer to them. The scorpion, now in all its twisted glory, rears back its tail and snaps it forward. An orange blur explodes straight towards the red hair Championess' head.

Only to barely miss when a Dust bullet buries itself into one of the Grimm's eye. As they have more sufficient light, and she have clear, glowing targets, aiming for a vital from Mors back is difficult, but no longer impossible for her. With an agonized scream, the Grimm flinches back onto its front legs, but momentum has not released its grip from the beast's tail, pulling the thing forward will no doubt flip it over has it rear not crashed into the ceiling. The whole passage shakes from having to bear the great impact. A massive chunk of the ceiling drop straight into the Grimm's head.

The dust catches up to them just as they exit the cavern. Pyrrha holds her breath and shield her face from the particles blasted out of the cave. She hears Jaune's frantic coughs on the other side.

Mors slows down and put them down a distance away from the cave. He takes out his sword and holds it in both his hands. The girl hasn't put away her weapons either.

Only silence comes from within the cave. The hope is the Grimm was perished with the ceiling collapse. But given the Grimm's size, she doubts it. Still, nothing came out from the darkness after a while.

"Let's move on." Mors says, not taking his eyes off the entrance.

Jaune lightly thumps on his chest, trying to ease his agitated lungs and lets out a big breath.

"Let's not do that again."


	12. Chapter 8: Team (Part 2)

Chapter 8: Team (Part 2)

The march afterwards was uneventful. Mors didn't see any sign of other Grimm activities except for that of the elder Deathstalker's, the monster was very territorial it seemed.

It wasn't ideal that they didn't finish the Grimm off when it was down, but their options were limited. Going back inside the cave was out of the question, not while the structure was weaken and the Grimm condition was unknown. Waiting for the Grimm to recover and come out might take too long, and wasting time was undesirable, if they were to find an unpaired student for Pyrrha Nikos. There was a chance that the girl will find herself without a partner, because Mors has counted: there were 41 students. Assuming all the students could make it to the ruin, one was bound to be left out.

It was unclear what would happen to that person. But he was sure there is a required section called "Partner informations" in the Huntsman registration form.

They haven't met anyone on their way either.

The trees clears out into an open field. Not too far up ahead is a circular stone structure that is half demolished and has its interior laid bare to the elements. Inside are 10 pedestals holding what look like palm size gold and black chess pieces. Three of the pieces are missing. Most likely, these are the abandoned temple and relics Headmaster Ozpin mentioned. The two girls standing in front of the ruin serve well to reinforce his speculation.

One of them is Ruby's older sister, Yang Xiao Long he remembers. The other one is the girl with a large head bow who approached Ruby and Weiss during their accident.

The pair takes notice of the group as they approach. Xiao Long's expression lights up briefly at the group but quickly dims when she sees him. It was so fast one might've been unsure if they actually saw the change. She doesn't like Mors, but she hides it very, very well. The other girl, on the other hand, is not as reserved. She takes a little step back, puts Xiao Long between herself and Mors and eyes him carefully.

He puts Tsvestok away, hoping the action can help ease up the two. It works, slightly.

Jaune gives a friendly wave

"H-hey guys. You know if this is the place we're supposed to go to?"

"Hey VB" Xiao Long replies with an easy smile "Yep, this is it. You'll want to take one of those cuties over there." She points a thumb at the chess pieces, then makes an air quote. "'Artifacts'. Heh."

"Oh thanks Oum we made it! I'm Jaune, by the way, this is Pyrrha, and Mors."

"S'up, I'm Yang, this is…no? Ah well excuse her, she's a bit shy." The blonde brushes off the other girl's wariness so well there isn't even a hint of awkwardness on Jaune and Pyrrha, which is good. "I know you two, Ruby's pals, right?" She grins at Jaune "My boots know you _especially_ well."

"Yeahhh… I was gonna ask about that… just by some smallll chance VB wouldn't happen to be…"

"Vomit-t Boi _"_ Yang's grin gets wider

"Sunovab…If…I buy you a new pair of boots, are you willing to lift this curse of mine, please?"

"You can't put a price on passion, honey bun."

Jaune closes his eyes and faces the sky.

"This is your life now Jaune…"

Pyrrha giggles quietly and puts a consoling hand on Jaune shoulder. She looks at Yang

"Did you have any difficulty reaching here?"

"Not really, ran into a couple of Ursa, but no biggies, I could take them" at this the blonde glances at her partner, who just rolls her eyes "Didn't see much after that. For all the hype Ozpin built up today" she shrugs "This is pretty mellow."

"Uh…Yang?" Jaune speaks up, his eyes are still looking at the sky. Mors follows them, and immediately sees what's holding the knight's attention "Can Ruby fly?"

"No? What…"

"Heads uuuuuuuuuup!" Ruby, the object of attention, is falling, headfirst, at what looks like terminal velocity towards them. Panic is clear on her face. She doesn't seem confident she will be able to land safely.

Mors leaps to the girl landing point just as she is above his head. He swings one arm to catch Ruby across her belly, cutting into the falling path. The giant pivots on his toes and spin his entire body along the girl's momentum, essentially redirecting it into a circular motion. The boy's arm bulges up with muscles and veins from fighting massive inertia. Ruby swings by the ground, almost touching it but is then flinged back upward, not very high this time due to all the momentum was killed by Mors added weight.

He catches her on her way down with both arms.

"Oof! Thanks, Mors. Ow…My tummy hurts though. That drop was faster than I thought."

"Does it hurt inside?" He puts Ruby down.

"Ah! No no no you didn't hurt me or anything! I'm totally fine now. My aura's already fixed everything." She pats her stomach "All peachy. That catch back there was really cool."

Mors just nod in response and look up to find where Ruby has fallen from. In his peripheral, the girl with black bow decides to talk for the first time.

"Did your…sister just fell out of the sky?"

"I…" Comes Yang's voice, which was cut off by a beastly roar, an Ursa's.

Sure enough, one comes tumbling out of the treeline, flailing wildly. Mors has already had his sword out. The Grimm seems badly injured, it should pose no threat to six Huntsmen.

The Grimm never reach them, however. Three steps into the field, a pink explosion goes off on the beast's back and it comes crashing down facefirst; revealing Nora, who rolls off the Grimm yelling "YEEE-HAWWW"

The girl with black bow speaks again

"Did...that girl just ride in on an Ursa?"

-REST-

Mors is being weird.

Sure they has only talked yesterday, but Ruby doesn't think her friend is this…stiffy. He's talking about getting the chess pieces over at the big ruin, but he sounds a lot like professor Ozpin: big words and flat tone, all biz biz- Oh hey there's Yang!

Ruby waves quickly at Jaune and dashes over to her sister. Jaune seems dazed. Maybe Mors is also nervous about this whole initiation thing, too. She likes the thought that she's not alone in not being comfortable, but she also feel kinda bad for liking it. Puberty, she guesses.

"Yang!" Ruby yells out to her sister.

Yang's looking confused for some reason, watching the pink girl with a grenade launcher doing some sort of weird dance and sing. Big sis hears her calling and turns over.

"Ruby!"

Yang walks briskly towards her, arms forward ready to fall into Ruby's warm sisterly embrace.

They are interrupted by the grenade launcher girl when she suddenly jumps right in between and yells out of the top of her lungs

"NORA!"

"NORA!" A guy's voice comes from behind Ruby.

Nora, the girl's name, maybe, scratches her head and runs off to the other guy.

"Ah ha ha ha… Coming Ren!"

The red girl turns back to her sister to continues where they left off- Yang's about to lose it.

…But why?

"Sis? What's wrong?"

"It's nothing Rubes. I just-"

Mors zooms pass the two of them, literally sending vrmms to the ground under their feet. In his direction, Weiss suddenly drops into Ruby's field of vision like a quacking meteor. The girl hugs herself tight, her eyes squeeze shut and and her face scrunches up, bracing for impact.

That's not proper landing form!

Woah…so that's how Mors caught her. That. Is. Awesome! Weiss gets down from Mors arms, one hand rubbing her tummy while mumbling something that looks like 'Thank you'. Ruby knew she is a nice person deep down!

"ALRIGHT THAT'S IT!" Uh oh "I can't take it anymore!" Yang blows up, her eyes go red, her hair's caught on fire "Can everyone just chill out for _two_ seconds before something crazy happens again?!"

Everyone gets really quiet and stares at them. Ruby squirms a bit (not a lot) under the sudden attention, all the while rubs her sister's arm to try to calm her down. They stay like that for maybe two seconds when Yang lets out a large breath and nods appreciatively at her.

" **HELP!"**

-REST-

The scream comes from her left, somewhere in the woods.

Yang feels her scalp getting a little numb. It was a guy's voice, young. He sounded like he tore his own vocal core out just for that single cry for help. She never knew a person can sounds so desperate.

…No, she does know, doesn't make it anymore bearable though.

"Oh no…" She hears Pyrrha mutters, her weapons are already out. All of the earlier gentleness are gone from the girl's face, leaving only grim focus now. Yang knows, whatever's over there, it's nothing good.

"RUBY! NO!" Jaune's voice, and the blonde only catches a glimpse of red blurring towards the treeline.

She can physically feels her blood turns cold, and runs right after her sister. Mors shouts something, but it doesn't matter.

Never before has she thought she would hate the fact that Ruby can dash so fucking fast, but she really does right now. The girl ran almost three kilometres in no time at all, showing no sign of slowing down, and she would've ran straight into the woods.

If not for a massive Deathstalker comes barreling out of the trees to meet her head on, lashing its tail right at Ruby. Shit the fucker can aim! Yang can see her sister panics and turns Crescent Rose to fire blindly at the Grimm, but the thing doesn't even bother flinching . Its tail rams straight into Ruby, sending the little girl flying back a good distance, blasting up a cloud of dirt.

The world turns red. Yang lets out a scream that sounds almost feral

" **RUBY!"**

Thanks her lucky star Ruby actually gets up and coughs, she raises a hand at Yang:

"I'm okay...hrgg...I'm okay"

"GET AWAY FROM THERE!"

And she did, with normal sprint. Her aura was busted to save her life, and now Ruby can't use her semblance. Obviously, the Deathstalker isn't satisfied with just a crippling hit, it wants blood. With a rabid shriek, the monster is hot on Ruby's tail.

Yang put even more power she didn't know she had into her legs. It's okay, Ruby's keeping a good pace, she can meet her halfway, she can make it.

Right then comes another shriek from above, a Nevermore swoops in out of nowhere. It's an Apex Nevermore, not as much trouble as the Deathstalker, but fucking exactly what they don't need right now. The bird makes a head dive for Ruby, then with a giant flap of wings it brakes in midair and shoots its plumage down carpet bombing style. Two of them hit the little red's cloak, yank her back and pin her down to the ground.

No no no no no no no

The hail of plumage makes their way to Yang, but she doesn't care. The blonde stumbles and grunts when she felt her aura takes direct hit from three feathers, chunking out a quarter of it. Her semblance flares up and she puts the burst of energy from the hits into running. Small craters of dirt start to appear under her feet and she covers four or five meters with each step. She is so close, only three more steps from her baby sister.

Only it doesn't matter. The scorpion has already reached Ruby. It rears it tail back and snaps it forward. She can sees Ruby put her arms up instinctively to brace for the blow.

No no no no no no no not like this, not like this.

Yang catches a blur of white out of the corner of her eyes zipping pass her and right into the fray.

Then there is a wall of ice.


	13. Chapter 9: Team (Part 3)

Chapter 9: Team (Part Three)

The Deathstalker's stinger stops just shy of the little doofus' face.

The wall of ice she created seems sturdy enough to lock the stinger in place. Although the Grimm's size is…concerning, it shouldn't have enough strength to yank itself free for a while.

Weiss lets out a barely perceptible breath she's been holding. She made it. Good.

Seriously, such impulsiveness, that Ruby girl, rushing headlong into danger without any thoughts in mind! By the time the mercenary was done telling them it was the Deathstalker who can mimic human voice, the girl was already halfway to the Grimm, way beyond earshot, and beyond anyone's ability to support her. What came after was a total fiasco. If it wasn't by chance Weiss also had the capability for speed, that idiot would have been de…fatally injured. It was the very definition of stupidity!

But, it was also quite admirable.

To be completely honest, when she heard the scream, Weiss got somewhat shaken by it. She was not prepared to hear such severity coming out of a person…well, a Grimm's mimic, to be exact; she froze up for a moment, and unlike the other girl, did nothing. So on a certain aspect, she feels like she's lost to Ruby Rose.

Not that she would ever admit it.

When she turns around to address Ruby, she sees the Yang girl, Ruby's sister she believes, is holding the redhead in a tight hug. The younger girl is alternating between squirming and patting her sister on the back. It's a heartwarming sight that she almost crack a smile. But then, Weiss notices the blonde's knees are shaking slightly, most likely due to relief.

Suddenly all the positive emotions vanish, and she feel irritation surges back within her. That recklessness was not worth it.

"You are so childish!" she says to the stupid girl "And dim-witted! And hyperactive! And-"

She never gets to finish her charade, as she is arruptedly tackled by Yang. The next thing she knows they are hit by a tremendous force that send them flying for four solid seconds before hitting the ground.

Apparently they were hit by the Deathstalker's pincer. It roars angrily and smashes its pincers into Weiss's ice wall. To her horror, the wall cracks and then shatters within two hits, freeing up its tail to yet again goes straight for Ruby.

Yang recovered quickly, despite taking the direct, heavy blow; only taking a fraction of a second to shake off the concussion before rushing back to her sister. She is even faster now. Covering improbable distance with each stride. But she won't make it.

Weiss doesn't even have time to take her eyes away from the coming bloodbath.

The mercenary leaps in silently like a ghost, his giant blade blurs into an indistinct arc. With a sickening crunch, the sword cuts through the stinger at its joint. The impaling tip sails barely pass Ruby's left and strike the ground behind her. The Grimm shrieks in pain and flails its tail all over the place, spraying residual venom everywhere. The colossal student hunches over the little girl, his sword covering most of his back and head, shielding her entirely from the brunt of the deadly substance; his coat starts to release smoke as the venom burns through it. The merc tears off the rows of button on the coat and takes it off in a single motion, turning and throwing the blue piece of cloth back at the monster's face, blade hand making an overhead swing, just in time to see a claw finishing clamping into his torso.

The guy reacts quickly. Instead of following through with the swing, he turns the sword sideways and yanks it down. The cross guards just barely wedge into the claw's opening near the pivot joint as it closes up. The guards must've stab into the pincer sides, because the Grimm roars painfully and opens its claw back, but not before the jaws slamming themselves into the merc's sides, almost bringing him to one knee.

Yang comes in like an artillery shell. She weaves under the other claw and smashes her fist into the Grimm face plate with a deep boom, forcing the beast four steps back. She looks like she's going to press the attack, but the merc holds her back and says something. After some indecision, she turns around to scoop up Ruby and runs away from the Grimm. Looks like they are retreating.

Obviously, the Grimm won't let them go so easily. It starts to chase after the trio, and the merc seems like he's volunteering to cover for their retreat. But Weiss has recovered enough, and she's _not_ allowing that abomination to run anymore amok. She creates a path of ultra low friction glyphs and dashes straight to the running students. The heiress slides to a stop between the three and the Grimm and stabs Myrtenaster into the ground, towards the beast. Once again, ice spreads through the earth and onto the Grimm's six legs, all the way to its body. She would rather freeze the whole cursed monster all the way through outside and inside, but her aura reserve is already uncomfortably low with only this much.

The Elder got locked in place, this time its cumbersome pincers are its own obstacles: they can't reach the area around its legs to smash the ice up.

The heiress flicks her rapier to shake off residual ice on the blade, satisfied of her flawless execution.

Weiss Schnee does not make the same mistake twice.

-REST-

They've gotten back to the others okay. The big ugly thing was stuck pretty solid by white hair girl, it won't be getting to them anytime soon.

Honestly, Yang had just wanted to stay and beat the living shit out of the damn bug that hurts her sister, but she took a direct hit from the it, and she knew this thing can two shots her easily if she wasn't careful. And more importantly, Ruby's aura was out, so she couldn't really take any chances.

Speaking of which, the little runt has gotten back to being chipper after the near death experience awfully quickly…Well, as chipper as a person getting grilled by Weiss Schnee can be. Eh, she owes that girl big time, so let's just let her have it. Rubes really rubs off onto Yang though, she can feel earlier tension leaves her quickly. Lil sis' aura should be up and recovered soon. Things are calming down a bit.

Relaxing makes it easier to notice the dark stains on Mors' shirt around the shoulders and the ribs.

"Hey…are you…okay?" she asks the big guy. She's still really not comfortable talking to him, but at the same time she's also feeling really guilty being that way towards the guy who has helped her Rubes, twice now.

He turns his mask _really_ slightly at Ruby, before turning to Yang.

"I am fine."

Holy cow this guy sucks at lying. And he obviously sees how well his lies went on her face. She vaguely sees the black hair boy drops his head.

"I am combat ready."

Weird how it wasn't a lie. The dude is, or was, bleeding. The ribs' were obviously from the claws; she doesn't know where the wounds on the shoulders were from, but she would guess he too didn't take to safety back at the bird's air strike. Not to mention Scar Kid here might've gotten some of the Deathstalker's venom onto him, this guy still deems himself 'combat ready', and he really does look the part.

Maybe his aura's soften the blows, and he has the quick recharge type, so it's already back fixing him up. Though that doesn't sound right to Yang, she doesn't feel like pushing the guy.

"Okay…cool, but take it easy, okay? Thanks for saving Ruby earlier, by the way." She calls out to Ice Girl "Goes for you to, Weiss, thanks for saving my sister. Rubes, thank Weiss and Mors for saving your marbles."

"Thank you Weiss. Thanks a ton, Mors!" Well that was pretty hard to see who's the favorite person here. The other girl doesn't seem to notice, though. She fixes her posture and stands proud as a peacock, Yang even notices the girl's trying her damnedest to keep a smile from breaking out. Whitesy here might not be too hard to figure out after all.

"It was simply a Huntress's duty. I will accept your thanks, however."

For contrast, the dude only nods, ruffles Ruby's hair and walks back to Pyrrha and Jaune. Pyrrha's rifle is still smoking...huh. What was she shooting at? The Deathstalker was too far away for any decent cover fire. And Jaune is…back at looking at the sky for whatever reason…oh crap!

"Guys?... The bird's circling back!" The blond male yells. And sure enough, there's a black spot falling out from the clouds and is getting bigger and bigger by the minutes

"Persistent creatures…" she overheard the tall redhead muttering under her breath and the girl cocks her rifle. Oh, so that must've been why the oversize chicken didn't follow up on its feather darts. PR must've landed some really good shots at the thing.

"We can take this thing" Yang says to the gang, unfolding Ember Celica "Just need to find a way to ground it."

"No. There is no need for unnecessary risk" Weiss's voice "Our objective is elsewhere" She gestures to the 'artifacts'.

"She's right" Ruby seems to agree "Our mission is to grab an artifact and make it back to the Cliffs." she nods to Snow White, seems they're all getting chummy with one another "There's no point in fighting that thing."

To be honest, girl got a point, and Yang's even more inclined to listen when Rubes agrees with her. But to be even more honest, Yang _really_ wants something she can totally goes absolutely nuts on. She's been on the passive ever since lil' sis fell out of the sky; and that builds up a lot frustration, _especially_ with that whole rollercoaster ride with the ugly bug, she really needs to vent somewhere. Just so happens there's a perfectly good punching bag coming her way, the brawler doesn't really want to let it go.

"I'm all about that run and live life but uh…" VB scratches his head "how do we outrun those wings? That's a lot of distance with one flap. I don't think I can run that fast."

"I ca…" Schneerilla has the decency to stop herself before saying something dumb, good girl. "We have a good lead. The cliff is not too far; we can make it to the cliff before it catches up. The headmaster and professor Glynda is bound to be there and they'll surely have to deal with it. But all that's only if we move _now._ "

Right on cue, the Elder over yonder screams out for the gang's attention. Looking at it makes them realize the monster's already gotten half of its legs free. Well, Yang can go nuts on something else later. The Elder Grimm tips the scale a bit too hard.

" _ **Now!**_ " Weiss says through gritted teeth

For some reason the Studo Gigantuo turns his face to Jaune like he's asking about something. Jaune in turn exchanges uncertain glance with Pyrrha who, after a moment of hesitation, nods resolutely with a solemn look on her face.

"Let us move."

Something has been decided between them, something both of them don't like much. Jauney grimaces and returns her nod; then he runs towards the ruin, prolly to grab a chess piece.

Lil sis follows suit, and shortly after they are off putting some distance between themselves and the troubles. The bird is already within audible range, and the bug has started its chase.

What a mess.

But Rubes made some friends though.

-REST-

They didn't make it far.

Well, not that Nora has really expected much, but jeez louise, they didn't even run for five minutes. (lol)

They've gotten to another set of dead buildings when Flappy caught up with them, forcing them to hide behind some of the walls. The cliff is right up there in their nose, the only problem is there's a biiiiiig crack in the ground between them and it. The only way to the other side is a thin stone bridge that can probably fit two people side by side at most. Flappy is perching proudly on a stone column right across, just waiting for them to cross the bridge to push them down. Clever girl, but Nora has already seen through it's primitive trickery.

Although, that _is_ a looong long way down. They're all gonna be pancakes if they hit the ground down there. As much as pancakes are her passion in life, Nora isn't about to become one, yet. Therefore, she must think of a way to get to the other side safely; they will have to **strategize**.

Crawly comes busting through the trees - my oh my the lungs on this one - and goes straight for the team.

Lol it seems they're fresh out of time. Well, winging it is fun too.

"Aw man run!" She hears Jaune groans. No one opposes, so like a flock of startled sheeps they are herded towards the flimsy bridge. "Nora! Yours look like a grenade launcher, is it a grenade launcher?"

"It extremely is!" Nora laughs.

"Cover us?"

"It shall be done!" she spins around, chambers a round into Magnhild and showers Crawly with Nora Valkyrie's signature Boom Boom Bottles of **Love** , while steadily retreating back. Fireworks blooms all over the creature's head, which forces the bug to stop and shield its face. She couldn't even put a dent onto its shell, though, that tuff ruffian, but who cares.

They're already a good quarter onto the bridge by the time the sucker gets to the edge. It's smart enough to know climbing onto the frail bridge with its size is a big nuh-uh, so the poor guy can only roars angrily and waves its claws vigorously at them, to which Nora waves back just as enthusiastically. Thus, another daring escape by the Pink Houdeenee!

Then, the bug smashes its claws into the bridge platform, promptly cracking the only thing that's keeping the gang from taking a long dive down.

Oh… Well that's not fair.

"Caw Caw!"

Aaaand somehow she has completely forgot about Flappy.

The bird body slams the bridge kamikaze style, tearing through the whole thing like a hammer going through paper. Right away, they are on their one way journey to meet sweet Mother Earth.

Ruby and Weiss, the clearly faster ones, close the remaining distance to the other side before the bridge gets too steep to stay on. Yang's jumping rubble to rubble to her sister - Nora really doesn't see how the sister thing works here, but hey, life is full of miracles - propelling herself with shotgun blasts to cover the big gaps. The grumpy brunette - whatever her name is - hooks her weapon, attached to a long rope btw, into a supporting column and is swinging her way to safety. That makes four over there.

As for the other, it doesn't look like they have as much moving-around abilities like the WYR? people. So, they can only run back to the closer side, on which Crawly is waiting excitedly right at the edge with open claws.

Nora sees Pyrrha flies over the bug, lands beside it and immediately gets to work on its legs. While the thing is occupied, Renny lands on its back and starts running around spraying bullets all over the Grimm. She turns back just in time to see Mors - he smells wrong for some reason, but whatever - throws Jaune into the air, the later yelps something like 'not again', leaving only Nora and big blue left standing on a crumbling bridge pillar. She has her way to safety, but the guy doesn't seem like he can make the jump back.

"I'll throw you over" Mors says to her. (aww)

The pink hair girl grins widely as she extends her weapon into a great hammer.

"Puh-lease, allow _me_!"

Nora likes that the big guy knows right away what she wants to do and doesn't even argue. He just 'okay', takes out his sword and jumps in between her and the ledge. She twirls around to build up speed and, with a blast from a BBBoL inside the hammer, smashes into Mors's blade flat, sending him to the others with a BIG 'Boom'. The backlash breaks the entire pillar under Nora's feet, toppling it away from the ledge. Uh-oh...she was gonna detonate a grenade and ride on Magnhild back to ground, but there's no way she can make it like this now.

So she blows up _three_ grenades.

By the time she lands back on ground everyone are already face deep in battle with Crawly. With a mighty roar, Nora Valkyrie jumps right into the fray! Pyrrha is trying to get to the Grimm's eyes while Mors is trying to chop off the legs (Nora approves of this strategy). Renny has gotten off the back and is shooting and slashing at random spots to find somewhere important to poke. Jaune's moving around blocking blows for his teammates and distract Crawly when one of them gets caught in a bad spot. Nora just goes for what she knows best: smashing her hammer right into the Grimm body; it's easy to hit, and that thing'll have to crack, eventually.

Poor Jaune is doing his best, but he's obviously wets behind the ear about these kind of things. Blocking one blow takes out everything he has and more often than not send him tumbling far back into the ground. The guy gets up every time, but she can see his shield hand shakes a little more after each blow. Aura is not the problem here, it's the stress in the head that tire out your body. He might not last for much longer. Nora and Renny are doing okay. They manage to avoid and parry lots of the attacks coming their way and get some good shots in, but they have to keep their distance and pace themselves .

Mors and Pyrrha though, these two are on a _whole_ different level. They're whom the big bad focus most of its attention on and direct the main damage their way. The bug doesn't make it easy for the team. It flat out shrugs off Nora and Renny attacks and explicitly keeps its face away from Pyrrha while using its broken tail like a whip to attempt on the redhead's life. When there's a chance, the thing will also use one of its leg to stab at the girl - Nora heard Metamorphosed Deathstalker also has venom in its legs, and Mors said this one is an Elder - and its aim and timing is just uncanny. Still, the girl dodges and deflects _every_ single blow with perfect form and zero waste of movement - some of the attacks are literally in kissing distance with her when she sidesteps them. Pyrrha positions herself so well that despite Crawly effort, she somehow usually ends up at its face and pokes at the eyes so precisely that it gets so close even the Grimm flinches every time she boops it.

Mors has to fight head on with the bug as it would not allow him to get to its sides. Crawly uses it claws like a pair of maces and just frenziedly whacks them at the big guy. And Mors fights back with just as much bonkers. He would trade the Grimm blow for blow, only dodge or parry when it's absolutely necessary. Some of the heavy blows gets so close to him they would definitely end the fight, only to miss at the _last_ possible second; heck some of them actually glanced over him, and he just doesn't even notice them, like he knew they weren't going to hit, or he didn't care. Big blue swings his sword - it's definitely heavier than Magnhild and to that, she says boo - so fast the sword shakes the Grimm each time it makes contact. It's like watching a mad man fighting a rabid beast.

Despite all that, Crawly stands its ground.

WHAM!

Mors's sword begins to crack. Uh-oh, that can't be good.

But! There also appears a crack on Crawly face plate. Nora sees a chance! She shoots a BBoL under the Grimm's right side and rushes in from its left. The grenade booms up and unbalance the Grimm enough to let her get in striking distance. With a yell of maximum effort, Nora slams Magnhild into the cracked spot with a massive BANG. The shell finally breaks, a huge chunk of it flies off from the Grimm, exposing the soft flesh inside.

Crawly screams like it's everybody's business and flails even more wildly. Nora grins from ear to ear, that feels really really good. She raises her hammer and smashes it into the soft flesh, it's gonna be a finishing blow.

Only it wasn't.

The blow was fatal alright. The fleshy part caved in with no resistance whatsoever and even more hard shell chunks got blown off. Crawly entire body physically jerked back from the hit and the thing almost collapsed, _almost_. The bug was too big that even a crit strike like Nora's wasn't enough to kill it immediately. It's going down, but it's not going down fast enough.

And Grimm's death throes are terrifying.

"NORA!" she hears Jaune shouts

By the time she notice the claw it is already too late. She doesn't even have time to raise Magnhild to block the incoming crippling blow. This is gonna hurt really bad. Suddenly a flash of green, and Nora feels herself gets roughly pushed to the side and Renny is in her place instead.

NO!

Ren body is flinged away like a ragdoll and hit the dirt with no mercy. Nora saw pink light flickered in and out of his body, his aura is broken. Gone is the fun and excitement. She just wishes the Grimm just die already.

"REN!" She looks at where the boy landed and screams out, hoping he might be okay enough to answer. Nothing.

Nora wants nothing else than to go and check on her Ren, but the Deathstalker is still a big threat. The moment she turns her back on it she might be the next one to get hit, and that's bad for everyone.

Luckily for her when the Grimm's focus was on her it created an opening, and Pyrrha jumped right on it. Nora turns back to see the Deathstalker is fully blinded. All of its eyes are busted and its attacks have gotten a lot less accurate. She runs straight to Ren

"Ren! Ren! Answer me! Are you okay?! Ren! Ren!"

Ren is out cold and he doesn't respond to her calling him. She try to shake him awake but it isn't working. Dread swells up in Nora. The only relief she has right now is that Ren is still breathing, but who knows how long that might last. Please Oum let him be okay, hurt me instead.

"Nora…Nora!" Jaune grabs her shoulder "He's okay! He's gonna be fine! We need you over here. Look…" He points at Mors, who is now wielding a much thinner, pointier sword, which is giving him a much harder time fighting the hysterical beast. "That's a nail, you have a hammer, Pyrrha will give you a boost, let's wrap this up."

The blond knight then charge straight at the Grimm, somehow manages to avoid its flailing and with a proper battle cry, ram his shield right into its face. He stabs his sword at a wounded eye of the Deathstalker, and its attention is on him. It grabs him by the claw and tries to put him in its mouth to bite the guy's head off, only to drop him in pain as a red javelin is launched straight into its mouth the minute the Grimm opens it up. Mors takes the chance and drives his sword into the broken shell spot. The sword impales a quarter way into the Deathstalker head and the thing throws everything it has at Mors, determine to bring someone down with him.

Only Nora would not let it, by the time Pyrrha threw her spear she's already stepped on a platform provided by Pyrrha's shield. The red championess angle the shield at the Deathstalker and with a grunt jump pushed Nora towards it. The pink warrior leaped of the platform shouting her battle cry. When Mors stabbed the Grimm she was there. Blasting the last two grenades, she hurls Magnhild at the pommel of Mors sword.

 **WHAM!**

The sword buries handle deep into the scorpion's skull and the collision pushes the entire monster back. The Grimm's final attacks barely miss Mors and Nora. In fact, they would have connected if the Grimm wasn't dead before it hit the ground and started disintegrating right away.

Nora lands on her butt. She hears Jaune groans behind her and thanks Oum, Renny harmonizes with him from a bit away. She doesn't feel like standing up for a moment, so she just sits where she is and bursts out into laughter.

Pyrrha's joins her with giggle fits and soon Jaune's also laughing.

"Man oh man…if we don't pass whatever this Initiation thing is, then the school's standard is way too damn high." The blond says.

"It was a difficult fight indeed." Pyrrha concurs.

"Renny. Get up and come here you lazy butt. I want to check on you."

"In a moment, Nora."

"Jaune" Mors picks up his sword, the big guy doesn't look like he's just won a fight for his life with an Elder Deathstalker. He walks towards his larger blade lying not too far away, all business as usual, weird guy.

"Yeah Mors?"

"Back in the forest, I did not make eyes contact with you until you made one with Pyrrha."

"...What?"

"You made eyes contact first with Pyrrha, therefore you two are partners."

"That is not true!" Pyrrha steps into the conversation.

And she's right. Everyone know that. This guy sucks at lying.

It seems they won't be celebrating too soon, someone is going to be without a partner.

"Look dude, I know what you're trying to do, but this isn't right. There's gotta be another way. I'm pretty sure you'd looked me in the eyes when you found me on that tree. That won't hold up."

"I was wearing a mask. You cannot be certain of my line of sight. I was being careful about choosing my partner, so I was looking at your nose."

"Morskoy I cannot let you do this for me." Pyrrha says hotly.

"It was how it happened." Mors replies evenly.

Jaune is about to argue more, but he got cut off by a loud shriek from the other side of the canyon. The four girls over there has somehow pinned Flappy tail into the cliff wall with a huge layer of ice. Ruby has hooked her scythe into the bird's neck and is running along a column of glyphs up the standing cliff, pulling the Grimm with her. It's obvious what they're trying to do.

But nobody seems to notice the tail is _still_ pinned.

"She won't have enough momentum." Mors says.

The guy has already put his giant blade back and is winding the sword back for some reason. The area around his sword seems to darken, and when the entire blade turn pitch black it's clear that was no illusion she was seeing. The air around the sword twists and bends, telling Nora that the thing is getting super hot.

Big blue swings his sword forcefully in an arc. The moment he swung it, the sword flared up with blinding white light and arc of light shoots out of the swing. It's freaking fast, too fast, like lightning strike. It flashed out of Nora's sight the second it was born.

Over on the other side, except for Ruby, the other three girls are staring back at them.

Flappy's tail was cut clean off. On the cliff wall there is now a red hot scar spanning a massive length across the rocky surface.

Ruby finally builds up enough speed at the top of the cliff and with a flair, she cuts off Flappy head.

"Nora" she hears Mors calling her.

"Mm-hmm?"

"Would you mind carrying me the rest of the way?"

Without waiting for her response. The guy crashes down to the ground like timber, no longer responsive.

 **A/N:**

 **I was planning to finish it up with this chapter but it's gotten too long. So there's a short chapter coming up really soon after this one**

 **Read and Reviews. I basically live on your reviews guys.**


	14. Chapter 10: Team (Final Part)

Chapter 10: Team (Final part)

Mors wakes up to a white ceiling.

So he's in the infirmary. Nora really did him a solid and carried him…well, whatevers were left of that Initiation thing.

That was embarrassing, shutting his engine down early like that right in front of everyone. Lowly a merc he is but come on, professional pride is still very much a thing for him. Mors didn't think he would have to push his body that far for an entrance exam for Huntsmen in training, _freshmen_ at that. But there he was, three cracked ribs, two huge holes on his shoulder, mild internal bleeding in the stomach, and a bit of Deathstalker's venom in his blood. He was struggling to stand before fighting the Deathstalker and was practically dead on his feet after killing it. And using Solntse pushed it wayyy over the edge; he barely got the words out to Hammer Girl when he signed off.

Speaking of the entrance exam, he needs to talk the the Headmaster.

Mors sits up to take off the tubes that are sticking in his arm. But then he stops reaching for the tubes when he realizes he's not alone in the room, and his shifting around has alerted the other occupants.

"Mors! You're up! Thanks Oum's Mercy! How are you feeling?" Jaune was dozing off a bit on a chair by the wall. He rushes over to Mors, stumbling over his feet a little bit.

"Poochi Goochi. Some food might be nice tho." There's also Pyrrha who's waking up and Ruby and Yang leaning on each other sleeping soundly. None of them seems like they'd freshened up after Initiation…it _is_ over right? "Initiation is done right? How long was I out?"

"A few hours maybe? I wasn't paying much attention. Initiation was finished way back ago. It's dinner time now, Ren and Nora are getting some chows for all of us." The blond notices Pyrrha approaching them "Hey."

"Hello Jaune" Bronze Girl smiles and nods "How are you Mors?"

"All smiles and sunshines here, killer hunger though." Mors grins. "You know, you guys didn't have to stay and wait for me like this. Could've gotten a shower and some rest while I was in La La Land."

Pyrrha seems a bit taken aback, probably because he's acting a little different than back in the forest. But the girl gracefully powers through it.

"You gave us quite a fright back then. When you were brought here, nurse Syrup immediately called professor Peach for emergency treatment. They said your body was in serious condition because of the Deathstalker's venom, along with other injuries you were borderline the critical stage. It wasn't certain when you would wake up again. Everyone was very worried when they heard it" she gestures around her in explaining why they're here, glancing briefly at Ruby "We didn't know you were in such a dire state." There was guilt in that last bit.

"You couldn't have. It's not like I was running around yelling 'I'm injured' into everyone's ears. You guys would be distracted if you know." Mors sees Jaune furrows his eyebrows and seems like he wants to say something. It's not good to continue this line of conversation. Let's use the good old technique for avoiding uncomfortable talk: changing subject. "So what happened after Initiation?"

Jaune and Pyrrha looks at each other. Pyrrha sighs, there's a bit of guilt, again, and a pinch of frustration on her face. Jaune scratches his head uncomfortably.

"Ozpin assigned team by the kind of chess pieces we got. Black rook goes with gold rook and all that. We…Pyrrha and I are partners."

"Oh? And who are the other two?" It's probably Ren and Nora. Mors remembers Nora was singing something about being queen of the castle back at the ruin. And Jaune got the rook also, he thinks.

"Ren and Nora…Mors, you don't have a partner." The blond's voice is getting a bit heat. Mors sighs on the inside, he supposes he'll take this one.

"Yeah, someone had to take the fall from the get-go. There was only 41 students. I'm not sure it was intentional but." He gestures at the two "It's better like this than it's being Pyrrha. Unlucky, sure, but you don't have to feel bad about it."

"You stupid idiot! Who would want to step on other people to save their own butt like that! Do you- Ah! Sorry Pyrrha…" Pyrrha shakes her head letting it go. Jaune deflates as quick as his outburst "We…we tried to find another way man. When we got back to the ruin all the pieces were taken. Me and Pyrrha tried to tell the headmaster you were lying, but he said you were right, he couldn't confirm whether you made eye contact with me because of your mask. We waited to see maybe someone might drop out so a spot opens up, but yeah, fat chance-"

"Just to throw it out there. Any one of you two dropping out for me is a very dumb idea."

Holy shit they did considered it! Brothers these two are too nice for their own good. Mors sighs. He's glad they didn't go through with it. They wouldn't have told him he's partnerless otherwise.

"So when am I supposed to leave the campus?"

"Wut?" Jaune looks nonplussed, which makes Mors nonplussed. Pyrrha seems to catch on to something quicker than them and steps in.

"Mors, you're-"

"Mors!"

Mors sees a lump of black and red jumps onto his bed and grows out a pair of arms to hug his waist…well, try to, he guess, Ruby's arms don't reach even halfway behind his back, but that doesn't stop the girl from squeezing him with all her might.

"Ohmioum you're okay I was so scared when you passed out I didn't know you were hurt that bad why didn't you tell me you were really hurt the doctor said you got venom in your body it was because of me right it was totally my fault I'm so so so sor-"

"Hello to you too Ruby" Mors pats her on the back. By the wall, Yang gets up yawning and makes a big stretch. "I think you got some drools on you."

The little red bolts up and hastily wipes her mouth "Sorry." There's a bit of pink forming on her ears. "I didn't know when I fell asleep. D-Don't worry though, I uh…I brush my teeth everyday." she says while trying to wipe the spot on Mors's shirt with her sleeve.

"And worry I am not" Mors tries his damnedest not to laugh. That'll prolly makes her feel worse "Really though, you guys should go get some RnR. I'm up now. Go back to uh…did they give you room or something?"

"Yeah, each team has their own room. Me, Yang, Weiss and Blake are in one." Blake must be the unfriendly black hair girl. She was the only one in the group that Mors didn't know the name of. "We're team RWBY."

"Oh? That's a pretty bold name for your team. I take it you're the leader?" He quips.

"...Yeah…" Wait really? That's great and all he guesses but then…the name…he didn't peg her as a girl with a big enough ego to title her team after her name "But, but it was Ozpin who named the team! I would never do something like this, I would probably call us team WYRB or something! I'm not snobbish!"

"...Sure, sorry. I was only joking, don't sweat it too much." He scratches his head. Feeling a bit awkward, Mors turns to Jaune "So what's your team name?"

"It's-"

"TEAM ALVMN!"

Nora slam slides the door open with her feet and yells into the room. She's holding several large plastic boxes stacked almost over her nose. That must be dinner. Pinky walks quickly to the table next to Mors to put down the food. Ren follows closely behind her, carrying two trays of drinks.

"Up and running again I see." Nora pats him heartily on the shoulder "That was some stunt you've pulled back there, really got everyone's Dusts all mixed up. I think Jaune here almost shed a tear."

"You cannot prove that!"

"Don't do that too often though" She just skipped through Jaune's defense and moved on with the conversation "You were reaaaaally heavy man. If it weren't for Yang who'd helped with carrying the sword I don't think I could've handled both you and it. Well, I probably could've, but my back would've been _very_ unhappy about it. Seriously, carry yourself next time you pass out."

"S-sure, sorry about that, I'll watch my diet from now on. And thanks Yang, for helping me out" Blondie waves her hand "So ALVMN stands for…?"

"Arc, Lie, Valkyrie," Nora counts on her fingers "Mertvetsov and Nikos. What's up with your last name? It's so hard to say."

"Yeah I hate it too" he hears Ruby mumbling, struggling to pronounce it. "So hold on a minute, why am I in there too?"

It's a pretty unusual thing that Mors is kept in the team like this. It potentially can creates a lot of problems for both him and the school. He doesn't know much about Huntsman education, but there are bound to be pair base courseworks considering how important a partner is for a Huntsman. Well, he has no problem doing two people's works alone, that's how it's always been. But even then there're still groupworks. A five man band is definitely unfair to other students.

"Headmaster Ozpin said that it was a very unlikely and unfortunate accident that one student is left out." Pyrrha interjects, the girl seems much more at ease talking about this part . "He would like to avoid someone having to leave Beacon by something beyond their control if he could. He proposed the team composition like this. Technically we do not officially go by ALVMN yet." He spoke too soon, she's back to being uncomfortable "If we don't…approve, we'll be called JNPR instead."

It seems whatever next isn't very good news. The redhead hesitates to continue, Jaune notices it and takes over.

"He said team ALVMN is going to be unfair to other teams. It might not seems like much, but one extra Huntsman can provide a really big advantage over everyone. The teachers will have to give us much stricter standards in their evaluations. Some of our missions are going to be harder than usual, regardless of our actual abilities. Also, there may be a few competitions where one of us might have to sit out entirely, or we can't join at all. Among other things." The knight shakes his head "And all that, he can't guarantee that you can get a Huntsman license without a partner after graduation. So you might be spending lots of efforts for the next four years for basically nothing."

"So you're in a pickle no matter what you choose. That's unfair in itself!" Ruby slams both hands on her seat, which is Mors. He pats her arm in appreciation.

He actually understands the Headmaster's line of thought pretty well. When the Headmaster said their team is going to be unfair, he didn't mean how unfair it _is_ , but how unfair it _looks_. The Grimms are the ultimate enemies sure, but there always exists competition among the Huntsmen, especially between the academies. Huntsmen are protectors of mankind, but they are also celebrities of sort, and more importantly, unofficial gauges of martial prowess of a nation. He saw people compared their favorite Huntsmen team all the time. To these people, a five man team is pretty much a cheat to that competition, and that's gonna furrow some eyebrows. And 'these people' includes some of people in very high places, like those who run the countries.

All that's to say the Headmaster had to set it up like this to hold back the naysayers, his hands were pretty tied too.

"Seems it's the best they can do sis" Yang echoes what Mors's about to say. The girl seems more okay with him now. "By the way, you wanna get off the 'was heavily injured a few hours ago' guy?"

Little red jumps off the bed like she was sitting on hot lava, stuttering out apology. Huh, he wasn't paying much attention to that, and it's not like he minded it. But Ruby antics did relief some of the tension that'd built up.

"Look man, we'd all agree we're gonna stick through it if you decide to stay." Jaune looks over to the other for confirmation, which they gives "It can't be that much harder, and these guys are pretty good at their Huntsman stuffs; you are too. So don't worry about us, just...choose what you like."

Huh, what are the chances that Mors can run into some really nice kids like this.

"I'll stay. Now let's get some food."

 **A/N:**

 **Team ALVMN is pronounced Almond. The reason I chose that name is because interestingly, the fairy tale The Juniper Tree in some version, is called The Almond Tree.**

 **Next chapter is coming pretty soon. It'll just be some closing ups of the Initiation and set up some plot points. Then the next next chapter school life can begin in earnest.**

 **As always, read and review guys. Good, bad, I'll take them all.**


	15. Chapter 11: Broken

Chapter 11: Broken

Mors gets off the elevator and walks into the Headmaster office. Jaune told him that Mr. Ozpin wants to talk to him when he's able to move around again, which is actually right after they had dinner. He has faster recovery rate than normal people so getting back to his feet after those kind of injuries was nothing strange. The team has gone back to their room, Mors is just gonna bring his stuffs there later; it's just one duffle bag.

The Headmaster office is exactly what you'd expect from a principal of a prestigious school: a huge lookout window that doubles as a clock face, an enormous working desk with piles of papers on it, coffee table with a set of chess, leather seats, a big ass bookshelf, and clockwork gears slowly spinning on the ceiling. The whole space just screams 'intellectual'.

"Hello Mr. Morskoy, I'm glad to see you're back in good health already" Headmaster Ozpin has been expecting him since he stepped into the elevator. It seems he's still in the middle of paperwork this late into the night. By his desk, Professor Goodwitch was tapping away on her scroll. She stopped when Mr. Ozpin talked to him and nods Mors her greetings "Please, have a sit. We have a few things to discuss. Then, you can go back and rest."

"Headmaster, Professor" Mors takes a seat at the coffee table and waits for the teachers to move over "I brought gifts." He raises a bottle of Votca and a bottle of White Rushan up "This is pre-mixed but it is not much worse than the bar-mixed one." He indicates the note sticking on the White Rushan bottle towards Professor Goodwitch "I asked Mr. Ivan for the mixing recipe and stuck it on here if you ever want to make one yourself."

The Northern student place the liquor bottles in front of respective professors. They share a look with each other.

"We appreciate your gesture Mr. Morskoy" Professor Goodwitch adjust her glasses "But I ask that you'd refrain from bringing alcohol into the schoo'sl premise next time. It's quite against school's policy."

"Oh shit you're right! I'm very sorry about that. Uh..."

"No worries Mr. Morskoy, we're aware that you didn't know. Just keep it in mind please. And no tobacco also. Tea?" He takes the tea cup from Headmaster Ozpin.

Hmm, jasmine.

"Now, first order of business" the Headmaster continues after taking a sip and setting down his coffee mug. He bows his head "We are very sorry that we've let an Elder Grimm gone pass our detection and injured you. That level of danger was never intended for our students." Professor Goodwitch also bows her head, she looks really frustrated. "I can see that you're angry about it."

"...I thought I'm keeping it under control pretty well." He scratches his head

"You are, I just have quite a knack for subtleties." The Headmaster sits up straight "There is no justification for our failure at the core, but please, allow me to address any misgivings you might have. I do not want your opinion of us to turn sour."

Mors taps on his cup, going through some thoughts. After a brief silence, he sighs "...Letting the Grimm slipped that I get, but you must've been monitoring us right?" He receives two nods " Why didn't you do anything when you found out about the Elder?"

"We did." Headmaster Ozpin tabs on the scroll Professor Goodwitch handed to him. It projects a holo of what has to be the map of the Emerald Forest. On it, a big red dot is displayed, surrounded by multiple yellow smaller dots close by "At the moment you, Mr. Arc and Miss Nikos collapsed the tunnel onto the Elder, there were twenty-four students dangerously nearby to it. We had to make evacuating these students a priority seeing that the Grimm was temporarily incapacitated. Shameful it is to admit, but with just Glynda and I, we were very limited pace-wise."

He point to a particular yellow dots.

"We didn't have a status on the Elder until it appeared again at the Temple. The fact that it followed you such a long distance there was very uncharacteristic of the Grimm. We were quite far away at that time. Glynda immediately made haste towards you but by the time she's arrived, you'd already defeated it." He can hear a hint of applause in the principal's tone. "Fortunately, we were able to bring you back to campus om time before your condition turned for the worse."

After his explanation, Headmaster Ozpin falls silence, allowing Mors to process the information. The student takes a sip from his tea and reclines back on his seat.

It check out, what the Headmaster said. The reason, positions and the timings, they're logical and fit together when he does the calculation in his head. If anything, they actually moved pretty fast considering the distance they had to cover. It also kinda explain why all the chess pieces were gone when Jaune and Pyrrha went back to the ruin. It was a mess for everyone involved it seems.

Bygones be bygones he guesses.

"Okay...Okay. I'm sorry for assuming you didn't do anything."

"Please Mr. Morskoy, if anyone it's you who shouldn't be doing any apologizing regarding this shambles of an Initiation. You've given much today." The Headmaster gives Mors a meaningful look "Perhaps too much."

Oh, that.

"Pyrrha is a kind girl with amazing skills as a Huntress, sir. She should have a bright future."

"Indeed my child she does, but shouldn't you also?" Mors shrugs. The principal sighs "I'm sensing a trait here, Mr. Morskoy, a trait I'm not particularly fond of. However, I suppose we have no right in this matter seeing that it is our incompetence that put students in this difficult position. Can I hear your decision on the matter regarding your team?"

' _Your'_? The Headmaster's already known the answer.

"I'm staying, sir."

The faculties share another look and smile. Professor Goodwitch taps quickly into her scroll.

"You are team ALVMN, then" the vice-head says "Your uniform, student I.D. and your luggage should be at your dorm when you go back." Huh, neat. "Your default password is, write this down please, M.M.73630. You should find all boarding and living guide in your scroll once you sync with the school's system." Oh they're definitely prepare for this "Don't hesitate to ask me anything you don't understand."

"I will, thank you, ma'am."

Followed is a much more comfortable silence as the occupants sip on their drinks leisurely. Seems that was the toughest part of tonight's conversation.

"So the next order of business Mr. Morskoy." Headmaster Ozpin clears his throat. "Don't be alarm, but we just want to know why you didn't tell us your Aura isn't unlocked."

Mors stops halfway of putting his cup down, confused.

"I…thought you already knew? You did a lot of research on me when we first met. So I thought…you know…I was an open book."

"It didn't even occurred to us that you are fighting Grimms without Aura, considering your feats at Yestausruhen." the principal shakes his head. "How did you survive the cold at that time?"

"I just have very high tolerance for cold weather I guess, you know, considering where my baby self was found. I'll prolly wouldn't live very well in places like Vacuo, in contrast."

"Ah. That would makes sense, yes."

"But then how did you manage to pull your sword to your hand from a distance" Professor Goodwitch asks "Or shot off that beam of concentrated sunlight?" Wow, she is _sharp._

Mors scratches his head

"It's not me, it's the sword. I can't really explain it, but we have some sort of a weird connection, like I can even kinda _see_ through her, it's pretty trippy. I can't do what I did with any other sword. I tried." He couldn't keep a bit of disappointment out of his voice "They aren't Aura, or Semblance. Unlocking hasn't occurred naturally to me and the few Aura users I met, no one seems willing to unlock it for me. Ah, not that those people are bad people or anything. I just think unlocking someone else Aura is a big decision or something."

"Yes, in certain ways it is" the Headmaster leans back and crosses his legs, Mors guesses this is his 'lecture pose' "To unlock someone else's Aura one has to let the other person gains insight into some of the deeper parts of their soul, parts that would resonate with the one who they wish to unlock, parts that they may not want anyone else to know, or know about it themselves. It is a sensitive thing, usually only performed between _very_ close people or by a very giving person, like Miss Nikos."

"And putting aside the exposure of the soul" He continues after a brief pause "When one unlock another's Aura, they're required to inject their own Aura into the other person. The more closed off the receiver's heart, the more of the giver's Aura is needed. If it is more than the giver can give, then their very life can be drained off by the receiver." Mr. Ozpin waves his hand dismissively "However that has rarely happened, if any. People's heart cannot be that closed off, or they would not survive."

"...I guess that would make sense." Mors plops back and looks up the ceiling, watching the gears slowly grinding "Welp, it's not like it matters much. I have made it pretty well so far, so maybe I'll be fine like this."

"Twelve years…" He hears Professor Goodwitch mumbles "Mr. Morskoy, would you like me to unlock your Aura for you?"

His eyes snap back down at the Mistress, seriously? "But didn't Headmaster Ozpin just said it might be bad for you?" Ah that was prolly not productive towards getting his Aura unlocked.

"I'm well aware of the potential drawbacks." The professor adjust her glasses, looking a bit indignant "However, I think of myself as a straightforward person, without much to hide. Furthermore, my Aura reserve is quite ample. Unlocking your Aura should be a fairly simple task. Think nothing of it."

He was about to say something, something he prolly shouldn't say, before he's cut off by the professor shaking her head.

"It will also be much easier on Beacon to not have a student so prone to serious injuries like you are now, Mr. Morskoy."

Mors feels like the teachers has figured out a lot of things about him. They are not head and vice head of the most vital organization in Vale for nothing, he supposes.

"I will be in your care then Professor Goodwitch."

"Good child." The professor stands up and walk briskly over to Mors. "Your hand please. Close your eyes. Focus on my voice."

"For it is in nurturing that we ensure the future of us." And Mors feels a connection to Mrs. Goodwitch, like something of her is steadily knocking on the door to his…uh…everything. "Through this, we become the pillars that support the very foundation of humanity." The words don't make much sense, but he kinda gets them. There's something strange in Professor Goodwitch's voice, though, almost as if it's going to break.

"Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul." And he suddenly understands things about Mrs. Goodwitch, things that aren't meant for him. A woman with a stern exterior but a vast maternal instinct on the inside. A person who is the hardest on herself to withstand the many sadness she's witnessed in her life. A teacher who hopes for nothing more than good lives for her students. "And by my hand, guide thee."

Then there is silence.

Mors doesn't know if his Aura has been unlocked, but he doesn't feel any different. He doesn't think he did, because Jaune immediately felt it when Pyrrha unlocked his Aura.

He sighs, oh well, it's a shame but it's not that big of a deal. He can take his time with this Aura thing. Poor Professor Goodwitch for this botched attempt though. Mors opens his eyes to talk with the teacher.

He immediately stands up.

"Headmaster Ozpin, is there anything else you need of me?"

Headmaster Ozpin is looking at Professor Goodwitch. He glances at Mors.

"No Mr. Morskoy I don't believe so. You are free to go."

"Thank you, good night sir, …ma'am."

He walks quickly to the elevator, running away almost.

Whatever has happened back then, he doesn't know. But right now he should not be here, he should not bear witness to what's going on.

Not while Professor Goodwitch is crying.

 **A/N**

 **Aaaand done! This is prolly my favorite chapter so far.**

 **The reason Professor Goodwitch cried is the same reason everyone feels like there's something wrong with Mors when they first met him. It will be reveal, eventually.**

 **In the last chapter, Solntse means the sun in Russian.**

 **Reviewwww guy, I want to know how am I doing.**


	16. Chapter 12: First Day

Chapter 11: First day

Mors gets up, folds up his blanket, grabs his running shoes and makes quiet steps for the door.

It is still very early in the morning. There isn't any daylight yet, and his teammates are soundly sleeping.

Their sleeping arrangement contains two bunks near the two walls and one single near the large window. The girls got one bunk, Jaune and Ren got the other and Mors got the single.

Nora, however, apparently had other ideas at some point in the night: she had sneaked onto Ren's bed. Now, she's sleeping with the happiest smile on her face and is spreading her limbs all over the place, leaving the boy only a little pocket of space to work with. Surprisingly, Ren seems pretty comfortable with it, almost natural with sleeping on the same bed with his pink friend. It speaks a lot about the history these two must have.

Mors gets out to the school courtyard and starts warming up for his daily exercises. His wounds still hasn't healed properly and they prolly will stay like that for a couple of days. Professor Peach did tell him to take it easy for a couple of days. But hey, it's not like injuries had held him back before, so no reason to break the habit now.

After the usual push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups and squats, he sets off running around the campus' edge. The campus is practically deserted, there are only the sounds of his breathing and his footsteps hitting the marble pavement. Mors starts to let his mind wanders back to last night's event in the Headmaster's office once he's settled his pace.

So what the fuck was that?

Pretty sure the unlocking was a busted, because he hasn't felt anything remotely like a strange power awaken inside, or at least has seen any parts of him glowed up. The question is how busted it had to be that it managed to squeeze out _tears_ from Professor Goodwitch, whom he knows for facts, from the brief connection, isn't one to easily cry (even putting her and the word together in a sentence sounds weird, damn). He's a little worried about what happened to her. Is she okay? Did he accidentally mess up her own Aura?

What is wrong with him?

Ah well he knows the answer to that one.

Everything.

…

…Prolly should stop it there.

He has Professor Goodwitch's class today, Practical Combat, he thinks. Hopefully he can kinda eyeball on how she's doing, and maybe stop by her office after class for a chat. Mors kinda wants to know what happened with the unlocking, too, but Mrs. Goodwitch's well being comes first. If something had happened to her Aura, not a thing in Remnant is gonna stop him from trying to fix it.

The campus is not that large, about the size of a small village. Mors ran for sixty laps before deciding to stop and walk a bit to cool down. The sun is already up, there are people, likely staffs, wandering about setting the school up. There is maybe an hour and a half before first period. He should prolly finish it up and head back for a shower. After another set of push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups and squats, the former merc strolls off for his team's room. When he gets back to the courtyard, however, he runs into a certain blonde neighbor of his, dressing up in workout clothes.

"Hey. Jeez you're all soaked up. Did you go for a swim with your clothes on or something?"

"Can't even do it with my clothes off. I just did a bit of jogging. Sorry about my overly moist condition right now" He saw her stiffens a laugh "Do I smell?" Mors sniffs his shirt's collar.

"A bit, but it's not a bad smell, actually, reminds me of the beach. It's not really a big deal, so don't _sweat_ it." It's his turn to get tickled. He spurts out a laugh and keeps on grinning. That was brilliant. Yang pauses and eyes him for a second. She continues, bouncing a bit on her feet. "You're heading back?" He nods, and they starts to walk back to the rooms "So let's roll back a bit, did you just imply that you can't swim?"

"Yep, sink like an anchor the moment I hit the water" He makes a splashing sound "For some reason my bones and muscles are too dense, though I'm not sure by how much, but it's totally wayyyyy more than the average bear. They perform pretty poorly buoyancy wise."

"Gee, sorry about that. Your bod looks great though, on the _plus_ size."

He snickers "I get it. Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"It's what I do" The blonde skips a step. "Could've dialed down a bit on the decorations though." She indicates the scars on his arms.

They've gotten inside the dorm hall, Mors pushes on the elevator button.

"Well, life was a bit rough before I came here." Mors shrugs

"I wouldn't say 'a bit'" Yang looks at a particularly long claw mark poking out of his right sleeve and continuing all the way to near his wrist "mind if I ask what did you do before coming to Beacon?"

Ding

He thinks he might be walking into an investigation here, but who cares, she's being nice about it. He doesn't really feel like hiding stuffs that can be found out one way or another. And it's normal for the girl to want to know about who's hanging with her little sister.

"Was a mercenary, I...kinda freelanced wherever people needs someone to fight for them. Like settlement protection, or more often reclaiming, cargo guarding, occasional raids..." He listed out on his fingers but stopped when Yang scowled a little at the last one "stuffs like that."

"Grimm extermination?"

"Oh definitely, those were the most usual things, the hardest ones too."

"White Fang?"

"Yeah. I cleared a pocket of them once, but usually it's the government who takes care of things related to them. You know, wouldn't look good to hire sellsword to do the country's counterterrorism."

"...Assassination?"

"No" He answers immediately "There were offers, to be honest. But I didn't like them, and I suck at jobs like those too." The girl shoulder's slumps ever so slightly. Mors scratches his head "It was mostly fighting Grimms, the two years I was a merc. A good chunk of my time was spent out in the wildlands. Really, only jobs out in Grimm Lands would get passed down to the merc peeps. They have professionals for all the other things."

The blonde seems like she wants to dig deeper, but shakes her head.

"Right. That was pretty rude to ask, sorry."

"Natural association, and I understand why you asked that." He shooes the issue away "It's rarer to find a merc who hasn't done a hit contract. We are all a little desperate truth to be told. Besides, it's not like my hands are clean either."

Ding

Mors lets Yang steps out of the box first and follows behind. Their rooms are right out of the elevator's door. Yang turns to Mors.

"What do you mean?" There's a sharpness in her eyes.

He stops for a moment, thinking he might have spoken a bit too much. Not like he's trying to hide but…he wouldn't want it to be a common knowledge thing. The worlds they lived in prolly have very different standards for morality. It's more likely this won't go over very well with Yang.

Ah screw it, it'll be worse if he's evasive about what he said. This girl is very perceptive, she'll know. The former merc sighs.

"I've killed people before, I've killed a lot of them."

-REST-

"Safe." Mors hears Jaune mutters to the team as team RWBY barrels into Mr. Port's Grimm Study class, right on the period bell.

"Yish! Weissy looks like she's gonna explode." Nora grins and waves at the girls. They have saved four seats nearby for their neighbors; one row with Nora and Ren, one with the Mors and the other two.

"You'd think with her on the team, she would never allow them to be in such a rush." Pyrrha comments.

"Well, class schedules were supposed to be distributed by team leaders, which was pretty stupid by the way." Jaune offers "Maybe Ruby forgot to hand them out, I almost did if you haven't asked about class yesterday." He turns to the girl in question as she plops down next to him "Hey Ruby. What took you guys so long? Did you get my text?"

"I did. We uh… got caught up in doing some… organizing" Weiss shoots Ruby a dirty look, under which the little red wilt down. "W-what's up with the team leaders are supposed to hand out class schedule thing anyway? That's so dumb!"

"I know right? And there's…"

Mors tunes out the conversation and focuses on Professor Port, who is in the middle of class logistics and syllabus. He catches eyes with Yang. The blonde shoots a glance at her sister and back at him. She purses her lips and then turns at the board.

She doesn't want Ruby to get too close to him.

Mors scratches his head, they never managed to finish the morning's conversation. Ruby came out right after he dropped the 'I'm a killer' bomb and chatted up with the two of them, and it didn't seem right to stay on the topic. It seemed Yang was still ok with him enough to keep the matter private, such a decent girl, but she's back to being wary around him now. Is he kicking himself in the butt for having overspoken at the moment? Definitely.

He'll try to find some chance to hash it out with her. Until then, nothing he can do but pay attention to the ongoing class.

Professor Port's lecture is pretty interesting. The man adds some flares to the stories he's telling, but that's prolly how he thinks his lecture is more fun to listen to. It's not, but going pass that his stories was very informative. Boarbatusk have very strong front but vulnerable underbelly and unstable posture, so slipping it with cabbage's oil is a good way to go about it; Beowolves hunts in packs to make use of the instinctive fear of being outnumbered by their prey, which further attracts more Beowolves, and kinda snowballs from there, so it's important to remain strong headed when dealing with them. Weaving in them are examples about the correct attitude towards the Huntsman profession and the general expectations set for Huntsmen and Huntresses.

So this is what proper education looks like.

Most of the stuffs he'd already knew, but he won't say no to a chance to refresh his memory. Mors listens to the lecture so closely, he doesn't notice that two seats over, a certain little red is having the time of her life monkeying around with her utensils, and a certain stiffy white is getting increasingly agitated by the little red's antics.

"In the end, the Beowolf was no match for my sheer tenacity, and I returned to my village with the beast in captivity and my head held high, celebrated as a hero!" Captured? That is high profile as hell. You need special permit to catch and keep living Grimms, otherwise that shit is _very_ illegal. If this is true, this professor Port is so much more hardcore than the impression he's giving off right now. Like Valean's Knights hardcore. And speaking of which that full metal cage that keeps rattling by the teacher's desk over might very well be a captured Grimm.

"The moral of this story? A true Huntsman must be honorable"

"A true Huntsman must be dependable!"

"A true Huntsman must be strategic, well-educated, and wise!"

"So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?"

"I do, sir!" Not much surprise it was Weiss. The girl embodies the ideals of an Atlestian's high priority citizen: flawless and superior. It wasn't strange she'd be the first to claim these qualities for herself.

Such an exhausting life.

"Well, then, let's find out! Step forward, and face your opponent!" Professor Port exclaims, indicating the shaking metal box.

That is definitely a Grimm.


	17. Chapter 13: Burden

Chapter 13: Burden

"Oof!"

Mors winces again as Weiss has a particularly hard crash into the classroom's wall. That makes it the third fail offensive White has made on the Grimm, which is an everyday run off the mill Boarbatusk. Normal size, normal armor, normal strength, it should've been an easy fight for the girl. She could've just iced the ground under the Boar Grimm when it did the four legged charge and stabbed its underbelly when the beast slipped. Two moves.

Of course, that isn't good enough for Weiss.

"What is she doing? That might work if she have a hammer or something, but not with that needle!" Nora whispers confusedly to both teams.

To those who aren't in the know, the heiress might looks like she's stupidly trying to attack the Grimm head on, where it is most armored, with a rapier. Obviously it didn't work, and Weiss got punished harshly every time. But when you know what the girl's actually trying to do, it's a different kind of stupid.

The Boarbatusk's faceplate is actually two pieces with a thin, and he means _thin_ , gap between them to allow flexibility in its snout. Just so happens that the Grimm's head structure is in a way that if you stab into that gap, you'll go straight for the brain, and off the Grimm instantly. One method is particularly effective when it comes to the Grown or even the Elder variants of this Grimm, where they are too heavy and too strong to easily topple over.

It is a resounding testament to your skill with a blade and your knowledge in fighting the Grimms. Prolly only a few big names in the business can actually do it. Heck even Mors doesn't think he has that much finesse to pull it off. That was why Professor Port complimented her strategy as 'bold'. If Mors remembers right, the most recent person whom was said to have done it was Winter Schn-oh now that makes sense.

"She's-" Mors stops when he sees Weiss's rapier gets caught between the Grimm's tusks and it yanks the sword out of her hand. Weaponless, White has to make a rather ungraceful dive roll out of the way when the beast charges at her again. The professor makes an excited commentary but doesn't seem to have any intention of intervening. Mr. Port can probably step in if things get too dicey for Weiss. But just to be sure…Mors reaches for his knife stashed under his pants leg, attached to his calf (it's basically contraband but rules are relative). He puts his right foot onto his seat. If things go down, he can reach the arena in two leaps.

Weiss quickly creates a glyph with her left hand that deflects another charge, away from where her rapier landed. Without any Dust reinforcement, the glyph shattered right on contact, and Weiss's aura took visible hit for it. The heiress stumbled on her dash to her sword, but managed to grab her weapon in the end. She turns and points the thin blade at her opponent, an ugly scowl on her face. Mors gets it, this is getting messier by the minute. So much for making a strong impression.

"Weiss! Go for its belly! There's no armor underneath-" Ruby offers helpfully. Good intention? Sure. Opportune? Maybe not.

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" White snaps at Red. The younger girl shrinks back into her seat, hurt's clear on her face. Yang turns around and offer her sister her hand, which Ruby takes. The blonde too is wearing an ugly scowl. She glares at the heiress, who clicks her tongue and quickly turns back to her opponent.

The Boarbatusk apparently decides the fight has dragged on for too long. Its stamina must be hitting the red. The beast curls into its infamous ball form and barrels straight for the girl in white like a rolling boulder, determined for an all in.

So much for one hit skillshot now.

Mors can see Weiss squeezes on her sword handle and grits her teeth. Limply, she flicks Myrtenaster at the incoming Grimm. A white glyph appears at the tip of the blade and rapidly turns light blue. Boar Ball collides with the glyph but this time, the monster is battered back and crashes in the floor, belly up. Weiss walks simply up to the Grimm and stabs the beast's heart. She doesn't even watch the Grimm disintegrate, but instead looks at Professor Port for his closing remark.

""Bravo! Bra-vo! It appears we are indeed in the presence of a true Huntress-in-training! I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Be sure to cover the assigned readings, and... stay vigilant! Class dismissed!" As soon as she hears that, the Schnee girl makes a beeline towards the door. She's out of the room in seconds.

"What's up with her?" Jaune voices everyone's confusion.

Ruby's looks she's psyching herself up for something. After a moment of indecision, pursing her lips and fidgeting, the girl packs up her stuffs, and Weiss's, and zooms out of the classroom, presumably after her upset partner.

Mors stands up to follow after the pair, but he is stopped by the blonde older sister.

"Let's not make Weiss feels like we're ganging up on her, alright?"

He pauses, then nods.

"Yeah you're right. Can I watch over them from afar, though? You know, in case someone gets too passionate."

"...Okay, sure. I'm coming with you, by the way, sibling duty." She turns to the other "Go ahead guys, save us a few seats at Goodwitch's alright?" Nora answers with a thumbs up.

Huh, Yang sounded like she wants to use the opportunity to talk to him alone, and he can guess what's the topic is, so Mors holds back on asking if Jaune, who is as much Ruby's friend as Mors is, wants to come with. To his credit, somehow Jaune seems to vaguely caught onto the subtext, and shrugs when Mors looks over to him. Without further ado, he and Yang rushes out of class after the RW of RWBY.

-REST-

They catches up right on the part where Weiss is calling Ruby a nuisance, _not_ affectionately.

The heiress is too upset, and the younger girl is too confused to notice Yang and Mors arrival, adding to that they are standing behind a support pillar. They are not in the girls' sights, but the girls are in earshot with them.

And Yang does _not_ look like she likes what she's hearing.

"...Back in the forest, you acted like a child, and you've only continued to do so!"

Mors sighs and scratches his head. This is a bit much. He understands somewhat, he thinks, why Weiss is being difficult right now. He sympathizes with her, even. But to take it out on Ruby, that's a dick move right there, and unfair for the earnest girl who's trying to help. Sure, she walked away and it was Ruby who caught up and opened the can of worms, and she knew how it might've gone, if the hesitation back there meant anything, still… He's stepping on his own toes here.

Point is, he's here for Ruby, not Weiss.

"...I thought you believed in acting as a team."

"Not one led by you!" Ah…So that's what this is all about. Now that he thinks about it, it would be weird if the heiress had taken this leader assignment with a smile on her face and joy in her heart. She's under too much expectations for that, he wagers. Worse that the reminder of her ire has gotten right up in her face, when her mood was all time low. Still, doesn't mean Weiss is not being a brat right now. "I've studied, trained and been _groomed_ for leading." There it is "Frankly, I deserve better."

Ruby is silence. What do you say to someone flat out denying your position and saying they can do a better job with it? Weiss is really vindictive when she's angry it turns out. She doesn't care how much her words hurt or who they hurt. Mors sighs, he'll find some time to talk to her. There's a problem with that on its own, but- oh no those red eyes can't be anything good.

Mors catches Yang's arm before she can stomp out and do something, presumably bad, to Weiss. She drives a fist right into his gut, knocking him up off the ground. He holds on. The girl pulled back as soon as she realized what she was doing, but the punch still forced the air out of Mors. Yang catches Mors and steadies him, looking plenty guilty. Still, she fixes a glare at him and silently demands an explanation.

He sucks in a big breath, and grins

"Whatever happened to not ganging up on Weiss?"

"Fuck her! My sister wanted to help and that bitch slapped the kindness right back into her face!"

"Yeah...she was being really nasty, I agree. But she's Ruby's partner. You stepping in now, especially _now_ , is gonna make it worse for their relationship, you know that. And it's gonna be harder on Ruby."

That seems to get through to her. She yanks her arm from his hand but stays behind the column, crosses her arms and scowls at the direction of the girls.

"Well fucking lucky you. The frost bitch is gone. No need to get your dick twisted for her anymore."

And apparently Yang is pretty vindictive when she's angry too.

"Look… I don't think Ruby is a very confident person?" Brothers she's gonna set him on fire with that glare. Still, the blonde nods. "Then what Weiss said is gonna stuck with her, most likely. She needs you, then. So maybe you go and talk to her first, give her some assurance, you know? I'll speak with Weiss" She made a sarcastic scoff when she heard the last bit "I know you don't like Weiss right now, but she has some baggage with her- yeah I know that's no excuse, but come on, don't be so hard on her. She saved Ruby's life."

"Tch!"

Her expression doesn't change much from anger, but the eyes turning lilac again is good enough for him. Yang walks briskly from their hiding spot to her sister, bodily glomps on Ruby and messes up her hair.

"Hey bigshot…"

Mors nods to himself, relieved to have avoided an ugly mess this could've turned out. Maybe it's not his business, but he wouldn't want to see a rift among the girls of team RWBY. After Initiation yesterday they are pretty much the sister team for team ALVMN, suspension bridge effect or whatever. He feels obligated to look out for them, meddlesome as it might be. He'll look for Weiss and hopefully talk her into taking it easy on Ruby.

Come to think of it, that private conversation with Yang is not happening today it seems. Mors rubs on the spot the blonde hit him earlier, it's still numb. She really doesn't think highly of him right now huh. Oh well, he'll worry about it later.

"You've handled the situation rather well." And somewhere along all of this, Headmaster Ozpin has witnessed the whole thing.

"Headmaster Ozpin" Mors turns around and holds out a hand for the Headmaster to shake, he obliges. "Please don't mind them, sir. Yang was just worried about her sister and Weiss… she was… I think she had a lot of expectations set out for herself."

"No worries, Mr. Morskoy. No one has done anything that require our intervention, and I understand there are things we can feel very strongly about. The school encourage team members to work out their differences on their own. That said…" He looks over to the pair of murmuring sisters "I do hope Miss Rose and Miss Schnee can reach an agreement. It is awfully suffocating when one cannot get along with her partner."

"Makes two of us, sir."

"That it does my boy. Miss Schnee went that way if you would like to know."

"Ah! Thank you sir! That'll help me out a lot." He doesn't head for Weiss immediately, though, while he has the man here... "Headmaster Ozpin? How is…Professor Goodwitch?"

As if reminded of yesterday's event, the Headmaster's expression gets a little more somber. The faint knowing smile is still there, but it's like there's a bit of shadow cast over his features, impossible as it is.

"Another thing you do not need to worry about, Mr. Morskoy. Glynda is in good health, physically and mentally. Yesterday was…a bit of a surprise for her. Your condition, that is. I assure you there has been no harm inflicted on our good professor. You can see it for your own later today."

"I...see…" Mors shoulders feels a little lighter. It's the most important thing that he didn't harm his benefactor, or Mrs. Goodwitch in general. "Thank you sir."

However, somehow, Mors doesn't feel he's gonna like the surprise, whatever it was. "Uh…Can I…ask what has happened yesterday? I don't feel like I had my Aura unlocked at all.

"You had not, it is in fact something we would actually want to discuss with you privately. I'm sure Glynda will tell you later after her class also, but can you make some time to stop by my office, maybe Friday after school?"

So that's two days from now.

"I will, sir."

"Good man. Now run along, you have quite a daunting task ahead of you. Best of luck, Mr. Morskoy."

-REST-

"Ugh! Go. Away. I do _not_ need you right now!" Well that went off to a good start.

Mors rubs the back of his hair and smiles apologetically. Obviously he's not gonna comply with Weiss's request. So he leans into the doorway to one of the building's balconies he found the heiress in.

"You were aiming for the glabella gap, weren't you?"

The range of emotions that go through Weiss's face in a few seconds is absolutely astounding. Surprised, then happy, then annoyed, then angry, then exasperated, then exhausted. Glumly, she nods.

"That last try came pretty close,right? If I saw it right, was it like, two inches off?"

"One point eight inches exactly! I would have succeeded if it wasn't fo-" whatever gripe she has with Ruby, she's keeping her opinion to herself. White bites her lips and makes a frustrated grunt. "What do you want?"

"I...overheard your conversation with Ruby-"

"Let me stop you right there. If you think to come here to berate me on that girl's behalf, or try to convince me to get along with her, or Oum's forbids impart me with some wisdom about life and leadership, don't waste your breath. I meant what I said and if _you_ of all people think you can change my mind, then you're being very presumptuous right now."

"...Do you want Ruby to resign?"

"What?"

"Ruby doesn't seem like she enjoys the position that much either. And I think she's the type that would rather have a friendship with her partner than being a team leader." Mors shrugs "I don't know, maybe you're right. You are trained, and I can see you want that position very much, so maybe it should be you. Either way, no sense having this arrangement if the people on the team are not happy with each other."

To be honest, Ruby might be much better off without it. She's just fifteen, she should be the one who's allowed to fool around a bit and not being responsible for three older kids. Weiss wants to do it, so why not let her? Yang will be pissed, and Ruby confidence might take a hit; but there are other ways to build that up, and the blonde will probably settle down if her sister is happy.

Weiss just scowls in silence and crosses her arms.

"It's the only way I can see you getting to be team leader at this point. Of course, it depends on whether Ruby will do it and if Ozpin will accept it. I can suggest it to little Red and the Headmaster, so you won't look like a bad person in this."

"Why…would you go that far for me? I…" she gestures at his general direction with a frustrated expression.

Mors scratches his head, again. He's a little worried he might go bald with this habit.

"You're a good person, I think. But honestly, your personality is difficult to be endeared with." If looks could kill huh. "Then there comes this great bubbly girl who tries her damnedest to befriend you despite the fact. Not to mention she _is_ your partner; I just don't think a title is worth souring your relationship with Ruby."

Gone is the anger simmering within the heiress. She just looks pensive now, but not with pleasant thoughts, it appears. Having said his piece and didn't really get a proper response, Mors doesn't know what to do but stand around awkwardly. He looks at the watch and it's almost time for the next class.

"We should get going, Practical Combat's in ten minutes."

"Yeah…yeah okay." White starts to walk with him, a statement on how distracted she's gotten.

They walk for a couple of minutes in silence. Right before they get into the classroom, however, Weiss breaks it.

"Hey…"

"Ye?"

"Don't…say anything to anyone…yet. I…I need to think. Thank you for suggesting the idea, but…" she waves her hand vaguely at the air.

Yep, this girl is a good kid. She's not saying it out loud, but he thinks her decision is already made. The hesitation right now only goes to show how big of a thing being a team leader for her. And she's giving up her only shot at it.

Mors pats her on the back.

"Sure."

"Don't touch me."


	18. Chapter 14: Spoiled fruit

Chapter 14: Spoiled fruit

Mors wakes up, grabs his shoes and sneaks out of his dorm room for another morning's exercise.

Yesterday went by without much highlights after the conversation with Weiss. White was distracted for the rest of the day and Red had had her fill of people blowing up on her, so neither one made any contact with one another. Yellow just stayed near her sister and periodically sent scorching hot glares at the heiress, and Mors. Blake, Blake just didn't care.

He can only replied with a shrug and said things'll prolly work out when the blonde whisper-yelled at him at lunch, which was an awkward affair for everyone of RWBY and ALVMN. It didn't seem right to say anything when Weiss hadn't decided on anything. He trusts she will stop pissing on Ruby for being the team leader and play nice, but he never did get a nice solid confirmation on that.

D…did he read it right?

Is there something else he can do he wonders? The girl has told him to wait, he can't in good faith do much more meddling.

Anyway, as Headmaster Ozpin had said, Mrs. Goodwitch seemed perfectly normal when Mors saw her in class. He believed the Headmaster, but it was still a lot of weight off having seen her for himself.

That is, until she pulled him aside to tell him about Friday's appointment. Mrs. Goodwitch wore such a sad expression when she talked to Mors he almost felt guilty about it. It was like her puppies died that morning or something. The merc appreciated the sentiment she had for him but _man_ , he can't wait till Friday to find out what another fucked-up thing was excavated from the wreckage that was his body.

Add it to the list he guesses.

Oops, dark thoughts begone.

On his way back to his room, Mors runs into a certain morning exerciser, again, at around the same spots. Yang looks like she's been waiting for him this time around. He guesses this is going to be a morning routine for them.

"Hey." She greets simply "Catch." A bundled up towel makes a high arc towards his face. He catches it, says his thanks and unravels whatever the towel is apparently wrapped around. A half drank water bottle.

"Look…" as he drinks the water, Yang puts a hand on her hip and another on her neck, deliberating whatever she's going to say to him "I'm sorry for whacking you in the gut yesterday. I was…heated, you know? My baby sister was in trouble and… I wasn't thinking straight and…Ugh, I dunno how to make this not sound like an excuse."

"It doesn't. It was sweet of you to worry that much about Ruby, I get it." He waves his hand dismissively. "Actually gave me butterflies in my stomach when I saw such sisterly love displayed before my eyes. Your fist was just a particularly large butterfly among the rest."

The girl laughs, looking guilty as she did, but doesn't quite hide the sparkles in her eyes.

"I'll take that _jab_ , I deserve it." Yang says with a relaxed grin. Mors snickers at the pun, which seems to widen said grin. "Always nice to see someone who can appreciate a good _punch_ line."

"...What a pro." He laughs.

"So...I'm sorry?"

"You're forgiven."

"Yippee."

They get into a comfortable lull after that. As they walk for a bit, Mors hands Yang her water bottle back "You're in a better mood than yesterday."

"Yeah, I was just about to bring it up." She took a sip. "Weiss offered to make coffee for Ruby last night. Yep, they made up. Weiss said she was putting the team leader matter aside, and gonna be the best partner Ruby can have, and lil sis was all smiles and sunshine. Hard to stay mad at Crème de la Crème after that." She gives him a friendly tap on the arm "Whatever you said to her, thanks."

Mors scratches his head

"I honestly didn't do anything of effect...Weiss hashed things out on her own. No really, I was actually about to suggest that Ruby just screw off the whole leader thing." He raises his palms to placate the suddenly agitated blonde "It might be better for Ruby all together you know. Team leader just seems like a hot pile of bother to me. Anyway, it doesn't matter anymore. Weiss came around apparently."

"Yeah…I guess you're right..." Yang strokes the ponytail she's been wearing "Huh. Whitesy is alright."

"That she is." Mors nods sagely.

They walked into the dorm hall lobby. He pushes for the elevator.

Ding.

"...I guess you're alright, too" The blonde says as she walks into the cart "I know you know I was kinda iffy about you. You…have something that just…gets under my skin; the scars, maybe. Unfair, I admit, I'm sorry. But it was how it was. Seeing you just gave me some pretty bad vibe, I dunno. Then there's that whole 'blood on my hand' conversation we never had a chance to wrap up yesterday."

Mors opens his mouth to respond but quickly closes it when it's clear the blonde isn't finished. He opts for pushing their floor button.

"But I can't keep on hating someone who'd helped my sister four times now, can I? You're looking out for Ruby, you get a gold star from me. If you're some sort of psychopath whose schtick is earning people's trust before murdering them all, you're doing a _killer_ job." Even if Mors was prepared for the surprise pun, he would still prolly crack up. Yang smiles and lets out a sigh. "I swear I'm normally not this hard to be friend with."

"I'll take your word for it. Thank you for your seal of approval." Mors replies with a genuinely grateful smile.

The conversation dies down a bit as what needed to be said was said, and they've reached an understanding of sorts. Yang leans back onto the railing of the cart and plays with her ponytail, wearing an easy expression. There are only the low hum of the machine pulling them up, the periodical ding as they pass each floor, and the tapping of Yang's feet, but it isn't at all unpleasant.

"Were they bad guys?" It's obvious what she's asking about. Despite all that said, she's not entirely comfortable with the fact, huh? Too bad Mors can't give her what she wants to hear.

"Not most of them I don't think." He shakes his head. She frowns, he sighs "They were just…cogs in a machine."

"That makes me really curious about the context." He might've spoken too much again.

"Uh…I don't think I'm allowed to let you know about it. Like…it's treason level of 'I'm not allowed'."

"Oumighty…to Atlas?"

"The one and only."

"...You know that made me even more curious, right?" Ah, shit! "I won't pry, don't worry." She said after seeing his expression. "But aren't you just a box full of Jacks, jeez…"

Another pause as the blonde studies his face and stews on the exchange. Then, in a very deliberate manner, she looks away, staring pointedly at the floor indicator "...Do you…feel bad about it?"

She's looking for a reason so she can sympathize with him, he realizes. It was a silly question, they both know. He has the feeling lie or truth, he only needs to say yes, and she will accept it, and what uneasiness she has with him will definitely lessen. She's working for a chance for them to be good friends; without her wondering somewhere in the back of her mind: "Should I be getting close to an unapologetic killer? Should I let my sister?"

In the face of such earnesty, Mors can never bring himself to lie.

"Pass a certain number, remorse started to look awfully similar to hypocrisy." He smiles sadly "Moral high ground is something I don't think I'm _allowed_ to have anymore."

The girl sighs and rests her head against the wall. She looks resigned but inexplicably, there is a ghost of a smile remains hanging on her lips.

Ding.

-REST-

"Headmaster Ozpin, Professor Goodwitch." Mors steps out of the elevator. "Good afternoon uhhh…" There's another person in the room.

"Priscilla Peach, dear. You gave me quite a fright back at the Initiation." The diminutive woman in peach and cream clothing that are too big for her size smiles gently at Mors. So she was the one who treated him when he was down.

The merc gratefully inclines his head.

"Ah, good afternoon professor Peach. I'm sorry for the troubles I've caused, and thank you for your kindness."

"My! What manners!" The woman in question giggles and shooes the issue away. "Tea?" At his nod she walks over to a cabinet and starts fishing out tea set and gets busy on making tea, natural as if she was in her own office. The actual owner of the office doesn't seem to mind, however. He took it as his cue to speak.

"Thank you for taking the time to meet with us, Mr. Morskoy, on a Friday night no less." He waits for Mors to take a seat "I believe you know what our topic of discussion is going to be?"

"My aura, sir."

The Headmaster nods, suddenly looking a lot more solemn "Indeed. As you may have guessed, our attempt to unlock it on Tuesday was unsuccessful." He shares a look with the Vice Headmistress, who is pursing her lips "According to Glynda, who has caught a glimpse into your soul, your soul…it is incredibly damaged."

Oh.

"How...uh...how damaged are we talking about here sir?"

"We are not certain yet, that is why we are having Priscilla here with us." Professor Peach sits down next to Mors and sets a tea cup in front of him. "Her semblance allows her to study one's aura in great depth. With your permission, she can confirm for all of us the exact state of your soul. Are you willing Mr. Morskoy?"

Professor Goodwitch seemed to grow more and more uncomfortable as the meeting went on, she looked at Mors, studying his face with some sort of...dread, as if she was waiting for a bomb to go off. It's pretty bad, huh.

"Please Professor Peach, I'm in your capable hands."

"Of course, dear. Now…" The professor puts a hand on his arm "What would you say is your favorite food?"

"Uh…salmon, ma'am?"

"Mmmm yum! Can you close your eyes and try very hard to imagine yourself having some delicious salmon?"

He closes his eyes and obliges. He was never much for vivid imagination, but he tries to conjure up an image of a dish of honey glazed grilled salmon anyway. He doesn't do very well at first, but then to his surprise, an image of the dish becomes more and more realistic, to the point he can see smoke coming out of the fish and almost actually physically reaches out to grab a bite. He knows for sure he's not capable of this. It must be Professor Peach's semblance at work.

Then, in an utmost surreal turn of events, the fluffiest hamster he's ever seen walks in out of nowhere, and starts to sniff around at his salmon. It is unnaturally adorable.

That is Professor Peach, he understands logically, but how her semblance works is so weird and neat at the same time he just stares dumbly (with his mind's eyes or whatever) at the cutesy rodent nibbling at his fish, unsure on how to act. Until they disappear altogether and he feels a tap on his shoulder.

"You can open your eyes now." There's a heaviness in Professor Peach's tone that wasn't there a few moments ago.

The professor turns out to be quite an expressive person. It's actually pretty amazing that Mors can read at least three emotions from her face all at once. Horror, anger, pity and some of the in-betweens. None of them indicate any sort of good news.

"Mr. Morskoy, were you ever part of some kind of experiment in the past?" Professor Peach asks gently, but it's clear the bubbliness was flushed out, and professionalism has taken over.

"No ma'am. Uh…none that I'm aware of."

"...If it isn't a result of some kind of twisted experiment, then Oum was truly quite cruel to this child." The professor shakes her head. She looks over to the Headmaster, who's looking quite concerned to know what she's seen, but has chosen not to push. The woman turns back to Mors and puts a hand on his. "I'm sorry dear, I don't mean to be round about. It just…this is going to be quite a hard pill to swallow. I'm simply not sure how to make it easier to hear."

"I understand."

"Okay…" She sighs "Okay. Mr. Morskoy's soul is large, unusually so. Very, _very_ large, in fact. However,..." She squeezes his hand "It is...malformed."

"Normally, a creature's soul will have the general look of that creature's outward appearance." The small woman explains specifically to Mors "Or to be exact, it possesses the defining features of its host. At least, that's how I and the people who unlock other's Aura see it."

"Your soul, for some reason, is in an extreme state of compression. It looks contorted, very…out of shape; very brittle. There are already fractures all over it. It seems ready to implode on itself at any moment now, given the slightest touch. What's more…"

The professor pauses, visibly fighting to keep up her professional manner. Professor Goodwitch has looked away entirely, her hands grip themselves white together.

"What's more, your soul is not…consistent. The parts don't look like they're from the same set. There are elements not supposed to be found on humans, or even faunuses. It is more like, many chunks of many different souls has gotten jumbled together and forced into a frame that was supposed to resemble a human's soul. I don't even know-..." Mrs. Peach pauses again and smiles weakly at Mors "I'm sorry dear. This is all quite painful to explain."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh no no no don't be love! Never! Truly, this misfortune should've never been allowed to befall you, or anyone! Fate is such a twisted being. I…I wish I knew a way to fix this, I really do."

"Pardon me Priscilla" Headmaster Ozpin interjects. He has been listening silently, attentively, and gravely. He sounds about as happy as everyone else in the room right now, but he's keeping a neutral expression. "Does this mean it _can't_ be fixed?"

The small woman squeezes Mors hand again, shaking her head softly.

"Is there any chance that Mr. Morskoy's Aura can be unlocked?"

"I…it will be a miracle. In…in fact...in fact, I'm afraid any attempt to do so might break his soul entirely."

Professor Goodwitch bolts straight up from her seat, absolutely horrified. In a smooth motion Professor Peach also gets up, walks around the table, latches onto the taller woman's waist and pulls both of them back onto the sofa. She rubs the Headmistress's back.

"Wasn't your fault Glynnie. No one could've known. No one."

"That is absolutely true ma'am."

"I'm sorry." Mrs. Goodwitch voice is teetering on breaking.

"There is nothing to forgive, ma'am."

And the silence is deafening.

…

…

So that's that.

Well, it's not like this is going to change much of anything. He's been doing fine without aura so far, he'll be fine moving forward. Really, Mors shouldn't be so affected something like this was discovered on him. He'd always known he's never been normal. This is just another one to add to the... Ah shit this one cuts much deeper than he thought.

So Morskoy Mertvetsov doesn't even have a proper core of a living being, fan-fucking-tastic. He's nothing more than an abomination pretending it's a person; a shamble of a mess just waiting to fall apart. Floating Corpse huh, maybe they weren't wrong. Maybe he's not meant to be alive, maybe his time is really long overdue already.

Shit that was something he didn't want to remember. This line of thought is not healthy at all.

"Mr. Morskoy…" Professor Goodwitch, who seems to have calmed down, breaks the silence. She speaks hesitantly, curling her lips as she does. "I know we were the one who invited you to Beacon but…" A deep inhale "Would you…consider another occupation other than Grimm Hunting?"

"...Am I expelled, ma'am?"

"No! Oum, no. No." The professor looks positively scandalized. She glances over to the Headmaster, who gives her a supportive nod. "I won't stand for denying a child their chance because of their circumstances. I just…" The woman chews on her lips. She looks so drained. He understands. This is a difficult situation for her, but she's chosen to push on, maybe on a personal principle or something. All he can do is wait.

"Every strike from a Grimm could be the one that takes your life. I'm…I'm sorry it has always been like that." She slowly shakes her head "And it always will be if you choose to be a Huntsman. Your bones and muscles are incredibly dense and your body are sturdy, yes, thanks Monty Oum. But we all know skins, fleshes and bones have their limits, ones a Grimm's claws can surpass all too easily. There are always risks in the occupation, but yours are too much. I cannot recommend you building your life around such risks. I…I'm sorry." The blonde woman looks away and repeatedly massages her jaw, like she's physically trying to regain control of her expression.

It might be a bit twisted, but seeing someone so distressed for him brings Mors a certain sense of comfort.

"Mr. Morskoy we will not reject you if you insist on being a Huntsman." Headmaster Ozpin picks up "In fact, we will try to work out a regiment that'll fit with your fighting style. It's just that Glynda…I suppose we all, are concerned about your long term well being." Professor Peach nods at the words.

"I understand sir, ma'am."

He plops his head onto the sofa's back and stares at the ceiling. The professors are kind to let him getting lost in his thoughts for a little bit. What they said makes perfect sense, and he _does_ want to get out of the fighting business. More than anyone, he knows how close he danced with death every time he faced a Grimm, or fight anyone with Aura. Not a single sane person would like that to be the theme of their life. So sure, he wants out.

But reality usually doesn't care about what you want.

"Headmaster Ozpin, Mrs. Goodwitch ma'am, you know my story. You know where I'm from." He speaks with a hint of resignation "Atlas doesn't give out too many opportunities for people from my side of the war. My options were either the Dust mine or a street thug. Well, I _knew_ fighting, it was probably the only thing I know how to do properly, and I would like to help somebody out along the way too. So that was why you found me as a mercenary."

He sighs and scratches his head

"Beacon is nice, but I'll have to go back to Atlas eventually. Sure Huntsman is not my first choice of career, but it is way way less risky than what I had. I don't know, maybe I can just take simple easy jobs and live in relatively safety. That's not a choice I can have being a mercenary."

He shrugs

"So if you can be so kind, I would like to continue my stay here."

Professor Goodwitch closes her eyes in resignation, Professor Peach puts a hand on her chest and lets out a sigh, Headmaster Ozpin nods solemnly.

"So be it, Mr. Morskoy. But please understand that while we'll try our best to accommodate your condition, it should not be a public knowledge among the student body. Unfortunately, there are certain people who will oppose the idea of an Aura-less student at Beacon. They can make your time here quite troublesome."

"I understand."

"And I believe that'll conclude our meeting tonight." The Headmaster exhales "Though I cannot say we will leave this room without heavy hearts. Mr. Morskoy, how are you feeling?"

"I'm fi-..." He glances at the Headmistress "A bit upset, sir. But I think I can sort it out soon enough. I'll be fine, ma'am. This isn't the worst news I've received" Ah that was a wrong thing to say. "That's to say, I'm pretty tough, mentally."

The Headmistress sighs. She takes off her glasses and takes a deep breath in. When she looks at Mors again, she is back to the straight-laced professional Mrs. Goodwitch student's known her for.

"Please, Mr. Morskoy, if you ever find yourself in need of…counseling, immediately reach out to me, no matter the time. I will _always_ be available."

"Yes ma'am."

Headmaster Ozpin nods resolutely, signaling the end of the night's session.

"You can go back to your friends now, Mr. Morskoy. Try to enjoy the weekend. Do not let tonight's conversation weighs your mind down… too much."


	19. Chapter 15: Vale

Chapter 15: Vale

"So what's her size again?"

"Uhh…6.5 if I remember it right."

"Really? Huh. Yang has smaller feet than I expected."

"Are you sure you can say that? 'Cause that sounds like something a girl would beat you up for if she heard."

"...Touché. Please never mention to her I said that?"

"Said what?"

"That her-ohhh…right. Yeah, thanks."

Mors points to the boots aisle. The two boys roam slowly through the women's shoes section, occasionally picking up a pair of boots and examine it with uncanny seriousness. Jaune even sometimes pair one up by his leg as if to picture how it would look on a person. Mors, not to be outdone, would bring a pair to put it by Jaune's legs.

"Eh?"

"I don't know dude...the laces are cute..." Jaune shrugs "She just doesn't strike me as the laces type though."

"Too old fashioned for her?"

"Can't be bothered with tying them more like."

"Ah. I can see that."

The discussion goes on as they go through a couple more shoes. Jaune tends to lobby for the one with playful design while Mors himself prefers beauty in practicality. The boys takes such care on picking the perfect fit for Yang that ten pairs in, there is still no winner.

By the eleventh, however, Mors finally stumbles upon The One. It's a dark tan pair with three simple straps on each shin. But! The special thing is, the straps' buckles are in the shape of little golden sunflowers, and they are cute as sin.

"Komrade Jaune, take a look at this one."

"Hmmm? Oh. My. _Oum_. This is definitely Yang." Jaune pick the pair up and turns them over "Looks handmade, really nice quality. Never heard of this brand tho...Coco…Huh. The work is pretty underpriced, but that's small brands for you." The blond shrugs. "Prolly should look it up to get something for the girls later." He mutters, feeling out the boots.

"Girls?"

"Oh? Yeah. Sisters, I have seven of them."

"Hot damn? _Seven_? "

"Heh….yeah. That's about the general reception to that. You wouldn't believe how many hair and skin products are there on the bathtub countertop back at home. Basically a damn altar to some kind of shampoo god."

"Someone sounds pretty bitter about it."

"Two out of every five showers I accidentally knocked something over and the whole thing came crashing down. Then I had to spend fifteen minutes, naked and irritated, mind you, stacking the bottles back up. _Then_ I received complaints about things not being where they're supposed to be!"

"Wasn't-uh…wasn't that kinda on you?"

"...Are you even my friend? I thought you'd have my back dude!"

"Uh...right then, damn them. Damn your sisters to hell! Can't keep their own stuff organized and make it hard for everybody. Messy ass bi-"

"Wait no don't insult my sisters!"

"...You're giving me very mixed signals here man."

"Just…nod and say I've gotten it tough."

He nods and pats his friend's back

"You've gotten it tough my friend."

"Thank you."

A couple more pats of solidarity, then Mors gestures at the boots in Jaune's hands.

"So you're taking these?"

"Yuh huh. You said Yang and Rubes are also heading into Vale today right?"

"Uhhh yeah. Ruby is getting the …whatsitcall…Weapon Weekly? And Yang is picking up her motorcycle. Yeah, right? That's pretty dope. They should be at the dock. You wanna meet up with them?"

Jaune nods, taking out his scroll and typing into it "No reason to wait till we get backto give these to Yang. In case she doesn't like them it's easier to exchange for another pair while we're still here."

"Makes sense." Mors takes another look at the boots "You think we can get her to try them on at least?"

"..." The blond glances at him. Then, in a cautious tone "It's… _totally_ not weird to want to see Yang wear them, right? I mean, they just fit her so well…"

"Totally! Right? What's wrong with wanting to see a friend trying on your gift?"

"Nothing!"

"RIght!"

The boys fall into amiable silence, once again appreciating a strange sense of camaraderie. They walk to the register to pay for Jaune's apology to Yang. Jaune asks the clerk about the Coco brand and signs up for point card when it turns out the store they are in is one of the brand's regular sellers.

As they're walking out of the store the Jaune turns to Mors.

"...Think we can ask for a picture, too?"

"Okay that _would_ be weird."

"Yeah okay."

-REST-

"Guys! Guys! Over here!"

The boys oblige and shuffle themselves towards the girl in black and red excitedly waving at them with her whole upper body, tippy toed.

Beside her, Yang is busying herself with inspecting a mustard color sportbike. It's an on road off road hybrid with aerodynamic shape but very thick wheels. The bike's frame itself isn't of a very expensive brand, but the whole thing has been modded beyond any semblance of its original appearance.

"Woah…what's a SMG 2-4 Gen 5 engine doing on a Daichi Golden Flash?" Jaune says in awe. Yang looks away from her bike and stares at Jaune, wide eyes.

"Wow VB…Didn't peg you for a motorhead?"

"Well…Don't get your hopes up. One of my sisters rides a Kugel. I only helped her tinkering with it from time to time."

"The Schnee Motor's Kugel?" Yang whistles appreciatively "Girl has strong taste."

"Heh, 'strong' doesn't even begin to cover it."

"Sounds like someone I'd like to meet." The girl laughs. "Anyways.." She waves at the bike "Guys, this is Bumblebee. I may have never been pregnant, but a teen mom I already am."

"Ewww Yang gross." Ruby protests

"What? You rather be an aunt to a real baby?" The blonde grins cheekily at her sister "There _are_ quite a few yummy gummy in our school. Maybe I'll see what I can do. In fact…" She leers at Jaune "VB here _does_ kinda pique my interest, knowing how to talk motorbike."

"Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew."

"H-hey! Isn't this a Wind Dust crystal? " Jaune dives into the conversation with reckless desperation "You have a booster system? Even with a Gen 5 it's still gonna overheat."

"Well well well Jauney Jauney…" The blonde purrs while glancing at Ruby, who's already had her hood up, covered her ears and clenched her eyes shut. Apparently satisfied with the younger girl's torment, Yang breaths out a laugh and turns to a flustered Jaune. "Yeah. That's why the coolant is actually…."

As the pair goes off to talk about Yang's motorcycle. Ruby makes a face at her sister and grumbles something about how _she_ should be the older one. Mors just smiles and put a hand on her head. The girl glances up to him, then back at the two blonds, crosses her arms and lets out a 'hmph'.

"Maybe I should get myself a boyfriend, see how she likes it."

"Ooh vindictive. That's gonna crack her cookies for sure. Whoever the lucky boy is, though, he's prolly gonna get his spine ripped out by your sister."

"The scary thing is I can't say for sure it won't happen." Red sticks her tongue out and shakes her head "Well, not that I'll find one anytime soon." She shrugs "Gotta figure out how to talk to strangers first."

"I don't know…" He gives her head a few pats "You're pretty cute. Can't tell me no one has ever hit on you?"

The girl grins at him and punches his side lightly. She didn't totally buy his compliment, it seems.

"Well half of the guys at Signal were cuckooheads over the stupid blonde over there. I think there were some girls, too." She mumbled the last bit "And the other half, _were_ her boyfriends."

"Woah…"

"Yeah that woman flirts with everyb-wait…okaymaybeshedidntdatehalfoftheschoolboys." Ruby amends in a panic, realizing she was selling her sister out. "I just want to say Yang was really popular alright? She didn't date like, 40 people alright? There were only five-" she slaps a hand over her mouth.

With a baleful glare which he absolutely doesn't deserve, Ruby punches him. These two are sisters, alright.

Mors chuckles and takes out from his backpack the reasons he's in Vale today. Instantly Ruby forgets all about the previous conversation and pulls her face close to the bright crimson crystal about the size of her head.

"Ooh, so this is a raw fire Dust ore. This is the first time I've seen one."

"Yuh huh. Gonna melt the tungsten straight down like butter."

Already there is a wide smile on Ruby's face, happy as she has the chance to talk about weapons with someone.

"You know I'm still kind of icky about casting tungsten into a sword blade. Won't it be really brittle? How do you even sharpen it? Don't tell me you're gonna use a diamond wheel? That stuff is _expensive_!"

"Usually yeah it's pretty brittle, that's why I'm gonna lace the melted tungsten with ice Dust to cool it down locally really fast, which-"

"Is going to toughen up the metal, oooooh! Uh...uh…hyper-compressed structure, right?"

"Yuh huh. And sharpening is part of why I use tungsten, in fact. Grinding the enormous blade is going to be a pain all around, you know? Because of how hard tungsten is, the edges aren't very likely to go dull once you get it sharpen, right?" Ruby tries to ask, but Mors already know what's the question "Well I don't actually sharpen the blade. The edges are gonna be casted along with the whole thing. You coat the edges sections of the mold in very strong gravity Dusts, they'll push the parts really really flat. If you apply the Dust gradually and evenly enough, rough edges are going to be almost non-existent."

"Omioum that's super duper smart!" The girl squeals with excitement. "Can I come with when you make the blade pretty pretty please?"

"Sure, that sounds really fun. I'm going to the school's forge when I get back, you're up for it?"

"Yesyesyesyesyes, this is gonna be great! We're-"

"OH MY OUM they are so cute!" The pair turn to see Yang all but yanks the pair of boots out of Jaune's hands. "I love it! Thanks Jaune!" Right away the blonde sits down on her bike and takes off the pair she's wearing.

After putting on Jaune's gift, Yang skips a few rounds around the Bumblebee. Judging by the wide grin on her face, the boots fit pretty well. She takes out her scroll and tosses it to Jaune, then strikes a pose with her ride.

"Take a picture of me with these eh?"

-REST-

"What's gotten you staring, pipsqueak?" Roman Torchwick asks as he steps out of the ice cream shop. Little Neo has already worked her way through half of the quintuple decks choco strawberry ice cream in the short time he used to pay the cashier (Oum knows he wasn't going to rob a damn ice cream shop). Still nibbling on her treat, she just flicks her head over at the direction of the cookie shop.

Lo and behold just over yonder is the Little Red stuffing her face with cookies from a paper bag the size of her entire arm, packed to the brim.

Ruby Rose, the girl's name. Daughter of Taiyang Xiao Long, a teacher at Signal, currently living in Patch. Sister of Yang Xiao Long, the blonde one next to her. Ha ha ha, wouldn't Junior like to know of this one identity.

Two moms, one reportedly dead and one is running a bandit tribe in Mistral.

Roman lets out an amused grunt. What a small town Vale is. He idly notes the cookie shop might be one of the places Little Red frequents.

"Well it is nice to spot an acquaintance out here in such nice weather today. But there is _really_ no need to say hello. We do have an appointment with the local animals in a few minutes, so we should get going now. Chop chop." He pats Neo's back and turns to walk away.

Her hand catches his and pulls him back. She gives him her ice cream cone and signs with the newly free hand.

" _Wait_."

Curious, he decides to continue observing the two sisters to see what's gotten his partner so interested. He takes a bite out of the ice cream. Compensation for occupying both his hands. Fair, he'll say.

He still gets kicked in the shin.

Lovely.

They didn't have to wait for long. When two boys walked out of the shop and joined the sisters Roman understood immediately what, or rather who, their subject of interest was.

" _That's him_."

The one who almost crippled the street rat and nearly killed the cripple.

He's not wearing the blue coat and that dreadful mask, no; but that absolutely giant Ursa of a body frame is hard to not recognized no matter where you are on Remnant. Roman has been wondering about this guy in the back of his mind for a while now, but seeing the boy in person, he can't say it was a pleasure.

" _I don't like him. Ice cream."_

He hovers the cone over Neo's face and feels her taking a bite at the treat.

"Yeah…me neither. That gait and that posture? You only see them on the old vets, the kind that fought the Faunus War. The kid was a soldier. No wonder those two got beaten up so bad." He lets out an exasperated breath "Who would've thought he's a Beacon student now, and friend to the Little Red at that. Remnant sure is round indeed."

" _It'll be bad if we run into him on a job._ "

"Seriously? You're not confident in beating him? You?" She shrugs and takes another bite of ice cream. "You know the street rat's replay can be biased, right? The girl was terrified of this guy. He may not be as good as we've seen."

" _Maybe."_

"Besides, the kid's a student now, apparently, not a merc. He's going to be at Beacon most of the time. I don't think he's going to start taking up vigilante work part-time here in Vale. Robbery happens all the time everywhere. Last time it was bad luck those two ran into him."

"The most interaction we're going to have is him reading about our jobs on the news, _after_ we've pulled it off."

" _Cinder's not going to like this._ "

"Since when did we care about what that woman likes?" The thief feels a stab of irritation at their…client mention, but he sighs when Neo squeezes his hand. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her, right? Vytal Fes is still a few months away. We'll do our jobs, look for an opportunity and cut loose before the little family reunion. Her business with him won't be ours." He looks at his partner "It'll work out, trust me."

Neo just nods and asks for her ice cream back.

Roman gives the girl's hand a quick peck before letting go of it. He turns around and walks briskly towards an alleyway, hearing the faintest footsteps following closely behind.

"Although, given SDC being the target for the next big hit, let's get a full roster of guards and security personnel beforehand, eh? Just to avoid the troubles…Can't count on the animals here to know about these things…too low level…"

He glances at a glass window of an abandoned restaurant to find Neo has released the disguise she'd put on them. His shoulders relax a bit. It's always bugged him to see Neo with her old black hair and green eyes; brings back some rather unpleasant memories.

He has never told her, though; he knows how much she misses her hair and eye colors.

"Get into the Schnee management office on Victory tonight. I'll give you the worm to plug into their server later." He opens a seemingly random, nondescript door that leads to a downwards passage and waits for his partner to come in first. "Oum knows we're crossing paths with worse and worse people working for the flaming bitch, and I am _not_ okay with that!"

 **A/N: Well not much happened in this chapter. Kinda a break for the characters and me before the plot picks up again.**

 **To the guest comment: The guy is about 230cm or 7ft5. Normally this would respond to about 100kg or 200lbs. Now in a normal human muscular male bones makes up about 15% of the weight (15kg), muscle 45% (45kg). The multiplier here is 10 so his weight is about (100-15-45) + 15*10 + 45*10 = 640kg or about 1410 lbs. It's fun figuring these things out.**

 **Now if you can figure out how much Tsvetok** **weighs...No wonder the launching pad broke.**

 **Actually the combined weight was wayyyyy more than a piano. So I apologize for the inaccurate analogy.**

 **RnR!**


	20. Chapter 16: Freak

Chapter 16: Freak

"Stop."

The large mace doesn't heed Professor Goodwitch command and keeps going, only to be driven off course to miss Jaune by a few inches at the last possible moment by a purple aura. The blunt weapon ruthlessly smashes into the ground next to his head.

BAM!

It wouldn't have injured him, but it would've hurt _a lot_ and his Aura would've been broken, unable to alleviate Jaune's pain. Given a normal person, their head would've turned into a red bloody smear on the floor. Jaune _was_ a normal person until a couple of weeks ago. The boy visibly flinched away from the blow, eyes wide and jaws clenched too hard from the pseudo near death experience.

Self control is something of a learned skill, one which Mors has had a lot of practice for a very long time. That's why when Pyrrha grimaced, Nora yelled and bolted up from her seat, Ren frowned, he simply stared at Cardin Winchester, not even a slight twitch in his eyes.

But it was him, among the LVMN, who was just an impulse away from turning the smug boy on the ring into a cripple for life.

He knows malicious intent when he sees it, and the glint in Cardin's eyes when he swung his great mace was nothing but. If he hadn't seen Professor Goodwitch flicked her riding crop and also had so much respect for the woman's authority, Mors would've been standing there over Cardin's broken body by now.

"Mr. Winchester, I told you to stop, did I not?" Professor Goodwitch's voice has a clear edge to it.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Goodwitch." Cardin says with a well acted mixture of guilt and helplessness "It's just that, I got caught up in the adrenaline rush, and the mace was just too heavy to stop in time. But it was my fault nontheless, I get it, and I'm very sorry." He makes a show of taking a knee next to the still dazed Jaune, grabs his arm and pulls the boy up. "My bad, Jauney boy. No hard feelings?"

"Ye…yeah?"

The Vice Headmistress clicks her tongues at Jaune's unwittingly denying Cardin's responsibility. If she was irritated then, she is infuriated now. Cold, biting fury in her eyes that promises to swallow up anyone who dares to push her further.

"Regardless of whatever Mr. Arc thinks of you, Mr. Winchester, the fact remains that you did not heed to my instructions." She turns to the class, her face leaves no room for arguments "Keep this _firmly_ in your mind, the next time someone ignores my instructions, that person will fail the entire year of Practical Combat while still compelled to attend class at risk of expulsion."

She turns to Cardin

"Are. We. Clear. Mr Winchester?"

All gone is the ass-kissing smile on Cardin's face. He glares fleetingly at Jaune and then at the Professor, gritting out his response.

"Yes."

"Good. Now, Mr. Winchester, it was a good strategy to make it an attrition battle to make use of your durability and stamina advantages. However, do not make a habit of tanking damage you considered insignificant. A lot of time small hits are precursors to a chain of much more devastating attacks. And not to mention death by a thousand cuts _is_ one of the Grimm's favorite methods. Do try to practice dodging and parrying."

Dismissing the sullen Cardin, the blonde woman sighs

"As for Mr. Arc, while I commend your perseverance, willpower will _not_ make up for lack of skills. Even in the heat of battle do use your head to analyze the situation and spend your strength wisely, where it matters. And it's been weeks now: please, pay, attention, to, your, aura! The moment your aura breaks in battle is the moment that spells your doo-"

The professor stopped herself and glanced at Mors, the aura-less student. Perhaps she didn't feel the statement too appropriate with his presence. Mors shrugs, hoping to get it across he doesn't particularly mind. She catches it. Shaking her head and sighs, the woman waves her hand dismissively.

"Just remember, aura is a Huntsman's lifeline. Managing it well is the single most important skill to have, when all else fails. Keep that in mind, Mr. Arc. You can go back to your seats now."

Jaune walks back to his team with his head hung and his shoulders slumped. The shame of defeat radiates out of his whole posture. In front of Mors, Pyrrha squirms ever so slightly in her seat, twisting her hands together, consolations and encouragements seem ready on her lips, just can't wait to be delivered to the downtrodden boy. It was sweet. Mors would've smiled at the caring gesture and joined the girl in readying a few lines to lift their leader's spirit, had he not seen the burning glare Cardin's fixing onto Jaune's back.

That's gonna be a problem.

-REST-

"So! There we were, in the middle of the night…"

"It was day."

"We were surrounded by Ursai…"

"They were Beowolves."

"Dozen of them!"

"Two."

…

Mors tunes out the story Nora is telling (and Ren's editing) about a dream she's been having for over a month. Something is wrong. Pyrrha and Jaune are being unusually late to lunch. After Professor Goodwitch's class, Jaune has to go to the lockers to put away his gear and change into his uniform. The process would've taken a while, so the gang went ahead to claim seats at the cafeteria, which is a warzone at lunchtime. Pyrrha had elected to stay behind and wait for Jaune, clearly wanting to continue her job at cheering their leader up.

Mors had wanted to stay too but well, three's a crowd, Jaune may feel like he's being treated like an eggshell, and that's NG. He could talk to his friend a bit later, over food. So the ex-merc went ahead with everyone and grabbed some of Jaune's and Pyrrha's favorite dishes.

That was almost an hour ago.

"Where's Jaune and Pyrrha?" Ruby apparently also shares Mors's concerns over their two missing friends. She cranes her neck to get a view at the door, tapping her fingers on the table. "Lunch time is almost over…"

"Yeah…It's odd. Have you tried texting Jaune?" He asks.

"I have, like fifteen minutes ago." Ruby takes out her scroll and checks the screen. "No reply. Maybe I should call him, right?"

"Uh huh." He nods, and the girl starts tapping away at her scroll's screen. "You think they're just having a really serious conversation?"

"That they can't do it over lunch?" Yang chimes in "And couldn't have send someone here a text? Must be pretty dang serious."

She had a point "I'll go take a look at the changing room if Ruby can't get through." He grabs his tray and stands up, waiting on the girl in goth.

"We'll come with you! I've gotten a really good nose!" Nora exclaims, assuming Ren is included in the search party, which the dude show no signs of protesting.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea, Mr. Oobleck _does_ take attendance, and it counts _a lot_ towards your final grade, _team's_ grade."

"Silly Weiss, who cares about grades right now! Our precious teammates are missing! What's the point of team's grade when there is no team?"

"What kind of logic-"

"Jaune? Where are you? Lunch time is almost ov-Pyrrha? Where's Jaune?"

The table's attention are all on Ruby now. Judging by the girl's worried expression, Pyrrha on the other side is not in a positive mood.

"Pyrrha? Pyrrha! Slow down! I can't understand what you're saying!"

"Ruby, speaker." Mors calls out.

Little Red nods and taps on her scroll, then puts it in the middle of the table. Everyone half stands up, leaning over to Ruby's device.

"-so I checked and I couldn't find him anywhere his locker is also missing I think he's gotten locked in there and it has launched somewhere but his scroll was locked so I couldn't use it to track his locker I'm…I'm not sure what to do." Pyrrha chuckles uncomfortably, the cracks in her voice clearly audible.

It is quite disheartening to hear the usually calm and confident girl so flustered. But, he's gotten the gist of the situation and fortunately, the solution is not so out of reach.

"I can crack his scroll password." He ignores the gang's questioning stares, scandalized in Weiss case. He can address that issue later. "Where are you right now?" He inquires.

"...I'm at the Initiation cliff."

Mors understands her logic. His biggest worry is also that the locker landed in the deeper part of the Emerald Forest, the worst spot within the locker's rocket range. However, she's clearly not thinking straight if she's trying to go look for Jaune herself, on foot most likely. The rocket can go the distance between Beacon and Vale outskirts into the forest, no way she can cover that much area in a meaningful timespan. The fact that Pyrrha didn't come to them for help or informed the faculties indicates some traits about her that he may want to look out for later.

"I'll meet you there." He picks up his tray and brings it to the disposal area, vaguely aware that the group is following suit.

He briefly considers talking to Professor Goodwitch. If Jaune was launched into the Emerald Forest then they would need the school's Bullhead to get to him ASAP. They might even have precise tracking of Jaune's locker without Mors needing to crack the scroll. Nonetheless, letting the adults know might put their leader in hot water, considering they still don't know why this situation happened.

He'll tell the teacher if Jaune is really in the Emerald Forest.

"You girls should probably go to Professor Oobleck's class." He tells team RWBY. Immediately there is protest forming on Ruby's face. He cuts it off "Oobleck might give us a pass for searching for our teammates, but not you girls. More importantly, we need someone to alert a faculty right away if Jaune's in the Emerald Forest. You can't do that coming with us."

"But-"

"Ow! Please! You're hurting me!"

Everyone turn to the distressed wailing, apparently belong to a bunny Faunus girl with brown hair. She's bending down, her features contorted in obvious pain from having one bunny ear pulled taut by Cardin Winchester.

"Told you they were real!" The boy chortles. The other boys surrounding the pair, presumably Cardin's teammates, join in the cacophony of laughter. One particular kid with spiky mohawk makes a show of being pensive.

"I don't know…the freak could've glued those ears onto her head or something. Try pulling a little harder."

"Oh shit you're right! Here…" Cardin practically yanks the ear away from the girl, making her tumbles forward and cries out in pain. The auburn hair boy then suddenly yells point blank into the Faunus ear.

"BOO!"

The girl flinches back and and falls to her knees, arms flailing helplessly to shield her ear, neck craning from hanging from her Faunus appendage. Her bullies' laughs get louder.

"Fucking freak!"

Mors really doesn't have time for this.

He makes a beeline towards the commotion, covering the distance in just a few strides. He steps right into the group, counting on his overbearing figure to part the crowd. It did. Cardin and his buddies looks at the new arrival with apparent wariness, probably confident in their number, but unwilling to provoke the student bigger than even the sizable mace wielder. Mors only focus on the Faunus girl, he holds out a hand.

"Hi, this might be a little bit sudden, but our friend is missing right now. I know from experience bunny Faunuses have really good hearing, so I was wondering if you can come with us to help find our friend. I'll treat you to some ice cream later."

It is obvious what he's trying to do here, and everyone knows as much. Cardin's and his gang twist their face in annoyance and glare at Mors. While Bunny Girl smiles demurely in relief and takes his hand.

"Sure…" She squeaks out.

He looks at Cardin then at the hand grabbing onto Bunny Girl's ear. The boy is instinctive enough to let the ear go and take a step back before Mors has to do something about it. The auburn hair kid grits his teeth, his glare intensifies ten-fold. Mors pulls the girl to her feet, nods his farewell to the gang and starts to make his way to the door, putting himself in between the punks and the Faunus.

He was barely into a step when a hand grips his shoulder.

"Hey man, mind your own fucking business. That girl is with us, we were just playing around. We can't just let you take our friend here to who knows where to find your Jauney b-"

There must be something about Mors expression that kills off whatever aggression Cardin's has towards him. The boy stares at him, speechless and wide-eyed. The other kids, even the ones sitting at the tables, caught a look at him and immediately snapped their gaze to the ground. In the corner of his vision, Bunny Girl also shrinks away.

"Where did you sent him?" He asks softly.

Cardin opens his mouth to speak, but is unable to as Mors's hand snaps onto his face and fingers coil around his jaws. The boy tries to pry Mors's hand off with both his arms, but the iron claw remains pinned to his mouth. Mors shakes his head.

"Skip the back and forth, please. Just tell me where you sent Jaune to when I let go."

And let go he did. Cardin massages his jaws and looks at Mors like he's going to him alive, but the boy knows enough to not act on his feelings.

"Upstream of the northern river." The kid grits out, his hands ball into tight fists.

Mors nods curtly.

"Thank you."

He turns back to Bunny Girl, who features are a mixture of fear, wariness and guilt, and motions her to start walking. He takes out his scroll and begin to dial Pyrrha's number.

A couple of steps away from the scene, Mors suddenly spins around and faces Cardin, who didn't expect his malicious stare to be answered and flinches back.

"I hope you're not lying to me."

Without waiting for a reply, he walks briskly away, back to the somewhat uneasy looks of his friends.

 **AN:**

 **Well not much to say here. Jaune's arc (hie hie) shouldn't be too long but I feel like the plot is starting to thicken at this point forward. So be on the lookout for important events. You guys are smart, so you may be able to guess how some of the things is gonna go further down the story**

 **That said, I do try to keep a few surprises under my sleeves. But I promise they will all be properly hinted.**

 **As always RnR. I really want to read what're your thoughts on the story.**


	21. Chapter 17: Weakness

Chapter 17: Weakness

With a chime and a click of the lock disengaging, Jaune's locker creaks open, revealing the haggard blond leaning his head against the sidewall of his metal prison. He has been standing awkwardly for over two hours.

"'Sup." The boy smiles weakly at Mors.

"Hey. How are you feeling? " Mors asks.

"Hungry. Thank the Lord I flew here on an empty stomach. Didn't really feel like swimming in my own vomit in this weather." Jaune chuckles and takes wobbly steps out of the locker. He waves at the rest of the rescue team. "Hey Pyrrha, Nora, Ren."

Pyrrha steps forward, seemingly wanting to hug her partner, but is eventuality held back by…either guilt or awkwardness, who knows. She settles for a clumsy tap on Jaune's arm, then retracts her hand to hold her elbow.

"I am so glad to see you're okay, Jaune...I should've realized something was wrong much sooner." The redhead lower her head to the blond "I'm sorry I took this long to help you."

"Hey hey hey! None of that please." Jaune grabs her shoulders in a panic and pushes her up. "Geez that was _way_ too formal, makes me feel like I'm some sort of a snobbish prick. Really, I think this locker just really hates me or something… wasn't anyone's fault, to be honest."

"You might wanna say that again." Nora chimes in, a bit irately "It was that Cardin guy who sent you all the way out here in the sticks, it was _totally_ his fault. Wasn't anyone's fault my pink queenly b-"

"Nora."

"...I say we break his leg." The girl in pink crosses her arms and huffs "...Legs."

"Please, nobody's gonna break anybody's legs!" Jaune sighs "It was just a prank, Cardin prolly just didn't know how to have some restraint." Absolutely no one believes that for a second, including Jaune, and it shows on his face. "Look, can we just get back to school? I'm already dreading what Oobleck's gonna dish out for being way too late for his class. Anyone has my scroll?"

"Here, might wanna change your password, though. I had to crack it, sorry."

"Oh. Yeah sure don't worry about it."

The rest of the team widen their eyes slightly at their leader's nonchalant reaction to the fact that his scroll's security has been breached. They wouldn't have been so surprised, though, had they know it was actually _Jaune_ who showed Mors how to crack a scroll's password. The guy is almost a wizard on the cyberspace. One time he has actually hacked Beacon's system to change Ruby's late homework submission to on-time; the fact that Mors only knew because Jaune needed him to break into the server room. Even Ruby thought her luck was just a glitch in the system. More than once Mors has wondered why his friend insisted on being a Huntsman instead some techie for some big company, Schnee Tech even. Stable income, not so much less than that of Huntsman's, but _way_ less occupational hazards.

"Oh man, we're already stuffed to our wazooes trying to keep the grade decent so far. We really don't need a penalty on our hands right now." Jaune groans as he checks the time on his scroll. They are well thirty minutes into Professor Oobleck's class, it will take them another fifteen minutes to get to class, and that will be half of lecture time. Professor Oobleck is an absolute militant when it comes to rules. One minute late is already a violation; forty five minutes, well… "Please tell me you drove here?" He asks Mors pleadingly.

"Yuh huh." Mors nods. Pointing in the direction he parked his minivan.

"Let's tell him what Cardin did. Maybe Dr. Oobleck will understand." It was Pyrrha who suggested. The normally _very_ benign girl appears to be capable of holding a grudge. This is the girl who forgave a stalker of hers and even gave him a signed picture of them together. "You should not suffer the consequences because of someone else's malice." Goes to show there is a fierce protective streak in the redhead.

Jaune's clearly not to thrill about telling on Cardin, and Mors understands. It's an age old adage: snitches get stitches, no matter what the conflict was. Jaune is weaker than Cardin, and definitely less vicious, so any escalation, which tattletaling surely is, is gonna come out worse for Jaune.

Pyrrha sees his hesitation and it slowly dawns on her as much. She grits her teeth gently, an expression Mors didn't expect to see her makes.

"Maybe just…tell him it was an accident? Tell him you fell into the locker…and you…hit a switch…and...flew…" The girl is not used to making excuses, and the story will never be believable if there wasn't a person standing outside deliberately inputted the launch sequence. Safety features are not for decorations, after all.

Pyrrha purses her lips and to Mors somewhat surprise, stomps her foot lightly, very lightly, but it was definitely there.

Jaune haven't rejected the idea yet, prolly because he's thinking about how everyone on the team is going to be affected if Professor Oobleck penalizes them. Mors thinks no one in ALVMN is going to blame him if he decides to keep quiet. But weeks of hanging out with the blonde has led him to be fairly certain that Jaune takes his responsibilities over others very, _very_ seriously. More likely than not, the boy would help any person in their circle at the risk of his own well-being.

If he decides that the team is going to suffer for him to not further antagonizing Cardin…

"You know what? Screw Cardin! I'm paying him back for putting me in a quacking flying metal coffin. Prank or no, I ain't gonna take one from freaking Oobleck so the dude can have a good laugh!"

Pyrrha smiles weakly at Jaune, guilt once again adorns her eyes. She's pushed him into this, the girl is definitely thinking that. Mors sighs slowly, and starts his car.

Jaune has acted his part as ALVMN's leader, it Mors's turn to play his role as the boy's friend.

-REST-

Cardin certainly got into trouble when Jaune told Dr. Oobleck on him. It wasn't really the case of Jaune's words against Cardin's. The bully has practically admitted to his deed back at lunch in front of quite a few students, and he is smart enough to know denying would be worse for him. The boy tried to frame it like a prank that got out of control, like he's gotten caught up in the moment, that he has no ill-intent behind it. He was very sorry about his actions, yadda yadda yadda…

Standing outside waiting on their leader with Mors is of course, Pyrrha. The girl's hands balled into fists as she listened to Cardin making his case. Her anger is quiet, certainly not Yang's burning hot temper flare, but not the cold calculating fury seen in the Vice Headmistress either. This girl is the simmering type he wagers, the type that is hardest to notice; and easiest to take extreme actions once the camel's back breaks.. Mors pats her head in an attempt to cool the championess down. She sighs, drops her shoulders and nods into his hand.

"Maybe I _will_ break his legs."

"Pyrrha darling, you are basically our team's standard for human and faunus decency. We literally measured people's niceness by how many ones over PR they are. Yeah that's a fact." He shrugs when the girl stares at him, eyes wide like saucers. "If you start breaking legs now, nothing will be sacred anymore. Nora may start extorting people for pancakes money. I may start breaking into teacher's offices to get exam questions for the gang, who knows. It'll be the Crazy Max all over this place."

"I've never agreed to this large of a responsibility!"

"Well, do you?"

"...You are very unfair." The redhead swats at his arm, but her features have lightened up a little. Jaune was right, this girl is easy to laugh.

Eventually all the justifications couldn't save Cardin from a week of detention, a month of community labor on the weekends, having his parents informed and suspension hanging above his head for his next serious offense.

Obviously the boy isn't very happy with the result. When walking out of the door, he roughly shoulder checks Jaune, almost putting the blond to the ground. Jaune isn't too happy with it, either; 'cause he knows, he's just escalated their conflict, a lot.

Pyrrha scowls at the ginger, but she seems to want to talk to Jaune more, so she doesn't act on her feelings. Cardin's not paying attention to her, either. He's tunnel-visioned to the boy who's sold him out, payback's definitely formulating in his mind. With a parting glare, the larger kid leaves the scene.

Or tried to. Mors puts a hand on Cardin shoulder and stops the bully mid-stride. He's nipping the problem in the bud.

"Let's take a walk, komrade."

-REST-

"The fuck do you want?!" Cardin growls at Mors as they step out into one of the dorm hall's balconies on the floor just below the roof. Not many students frequent this place, the chance of a faculty passing by is practically nil, and _this_ particular balcony has a blind spot from the cameras in the hall, useful for when Mors needs it.

The ex-merc has been silent the whole trip to the dorm, only giving directions of where to go. As soon as they got onto the balcony, he closed the balcony's doors and locked them with a click. Cardin obviously didn't appreciate the gesture and turned hyper-aggressive. Cornered animals do that.

Mors shrugs and unlocks the door, cutting off the boy's belligerent momentum.

"You want a smoke?"

"...What?"

He fishes out a pack of cigarettes from his blazer's pocket and holds it out to the boy.

"If you stand a that spot over there, the cameras in the hall won't pick up you smoking. Want a drag?"

"Yeah right. You think I'm stupid or something?" The kid scoffs. "You're not gonna bait my expulsion that easily pal. Now drop the fucking chummy act! What do you want? Actually…" Cardin smirks viciously "I know what you want. You want me to drop my beef with your little blonde girlfriend, don't you? Fucking bitch, have to have some orc deal with her problems. Ain't no fucking way you can threaten me into that, buddy." He snarls "You don't scared me for shit!"

Mors sighs and throws the pack over the balcony. He scratches his head.

"Look, man, I'm sorry for this afternoon, but if Jaune was launched into the Emerald Forest, I would have very little time to act before the chance for something bad to happen got too big. And yeah, I was a little pissed, too, I guessed. Anyway, I really just want to talk. Would really rather not get physical here."

"...Yeah you better fucking be sorry. And spare me the veiled threat. You think I'm scared of duking it out with you? I can take you any day!"

"You probably can, but let's be civilized with each, eh? Anyway, can you just…drop your issue with Jaune, please? You played him, he paid you back, you guys are even now. No need to make this a vicious circle."

Cardin laughs.

"Yeah…that's cute thinking that pussy wimp can be 'even' to me. Fucker should've taken it lying down. But he dared to bite back at his better? If he wants war, he'll goddamn get one!"

Mors leans against the door and slides down into a squat. This is difficult. He obviously can't let Cardin walks away still intent on bullying Jaune, but he very much doesn't want to rough the kid up. Force is just a bad way to solve problems, especially for something that's basically a schoolyard squabble. But Brothers, he's not some sort of master strategist, he really doesn't know how to convince this kid to back off.

"You know, when I was around twelve-"

"You're serious? You're gonna give me a life lesson through a story? Bitch you think I'm a kindergartner or something? If you have nothing else to say, just shut the fuck up."

"When I was around twelve, there was a guy who started picking on me like you did with Jaune. Turned out you don't need to be stronger to bully someone, just more privileged and more cruel. Ever been tied to a post to be used as a practice dummy? I was barely conscious when the adults realized they've been whacking their shit off at me for three days straight. Not a single bone not either cracked or outright broken." He chuckles "All this was because I was close to a medic girl that caught the kid's eyes. Ironic since _he_ was the reason we got close."

"Anyway, one day the kid raped the medic girl. She went mad, had to chain her to the wall, clip all her nails and gag her so she wouldn't cut herself. I was young, I was stupid, I beat the kid within an inch of his life. I was telling myself I was claiming justice for her, but really, it was just revenge for my torment. The fifteen years old boy wouldn't be using anything below his chest for the rest of his life."

"Ooh so savage! I'm so scared! So what? This is supposed to be a cautionary tale against bullying?" The ginger chortles sarcastically "Or is this another flex to show me how scary you are?"

"Story's not finished. That kid was from a better caste than I was, so they would never let me get away with crippling him." Mors sighs, what is he doing? Telling these bad memories to a boy that is definitely not his friend. It has been years, but the memories are still so vivid when they surface. The trauma has passed, but the bad taste just refuse to go away "I was useful to them, so they wouldn't do anything to handicap me. But I did have a father, you see. He's found me, raised me, taught me to fight, and taught me to be kind. He was a good man. There were days when he went to bed hungry just so I can have a full stomach." The ex-merc takes a deep breath "They covered him in Lightning Dust and zapped him until he couldn't even talk or see or hear anymore." He stares at Cardin, who's clearly unused to that level of brutality, even despite his sadistic tendencies "I put down my own father two weeks later. The kid turned a cripple, I lost my dad."

"No one walked away from the cycle of hate and revenge in one piece, Cardin. You push Jaune pass a line he could not accept, and he will push back. Then, even if you come out on top, you won't be intact, _then_ someone close to Jaune will come and ask for his justice."

"You know what happened to the kid and the people from where I'm from in the end? They're all dead. The people who turned my dad into a plant, the people who took care of him during his last two weeks, the kids who joined my bullying, the medic girl. All gone. You know who took them? The Grimms. Fuckers didn't care who hates who or who has a grudge with who. They slaughtered everyone the same. You're so focused on this schoolyard's squabble, but when the Grimms come, it won't matter for jack shit."

Then Mors is silent. He's gotten some serious baggage, it seems. That was a bit of a monologue there. Talking about those times put him in a pretty foul mood. He doesn't feel like holding a conversation anymore, he just wants to get back to the room and check on Jaune. Still, he waits for a response from Cardin. He acknowledges his feelings right now are bad, but they're irrelevant to what he does.

For a moment the leader of CRDL seems to consider his story and look thoughtful. But that moment passes all too fast, due to either the boy's stubbornness or his unwilling to listen to Mors out of sheer spite. Cardin smirks at him.

"Yeah boo hoo. Great sob story buddy. I think I've shed a tear. What? Am I supposed to feel bad or something? You think a life story's gonna change anything? That's fucking hilarious! Get this through your thick skull." The boy grits out "That Jauney boy _is_ gonna go through hell with me, and you can't convince me to stop."

…

…

…

"Okay." Mors stands up and steps towards Cardin. The ginger's bravado wavers as Mors approaches. They both know what is coming, and no one is looking forward to it. The kid gets more and more stressed until finally, the pressure proves too much that his instinct kicks in, and he decides to bet on first strike advantage. A wild haymaker shoots towards Mors head like a cannonball. The air hums deeply singing of the force behind the mace wielder's punch.

Mors kicks back the leg the boy's putting his weight on. The shot barely grazes his chin and Cardin falls face down onto the ground with a grunt. To his credit, the kid recovers almost immediately and tries to push himself back up, only to be driven back to the ground by Mors's knee pinning to his nape. The ex-merc left foot steps onto the ginger left arm at the elbow. Cardin flails around violently, but in this position, Aura or no, he's not getting up from any normally weighed mounting person, certainly not from the six hundred kilos (1300 lbs) Mors.

The giant student wraps his hands around his opponent's head and starts to twist it. Whatever sound Cardin was about to make became gurgles as his neck was put under tremendous pressure. The boy's Aura flares up to resist Mors's hands motion. When he feels he has reached the absolute limit of the neck's flexibility, with a strong exhale, he snaps Cardin's neck.

The ginger Aura's shimmers out, taking one to save its owner's life. Now Aura-less, there is nothing but fear shown on the kid face. His breathing becomes ragged, his eyes stretches open, glancing back and stares at Mors. How many times has he been looking at expressions like this?

Mors lets out a breath. That's enough, he supposes. He'll just put in some intimidating words, ask the kid to agree and let him go.

"Don't ever-"

"Pyrrha, I know I'm going through a hard time right now, but I'm not that depressed." Jaune's voice comes from over on the roof. "I can always be a farmer or something..."

"Wha-? N-n-no!" Pyrrha's voice. He hears rushed footsteps, then Jaune grunts. "That's not why I brought you up here!"

Mors puts a finger to his lips as he looks at Cardin, requesting his silence. He would rather not be seen by his friends in this position. The ginger is in no position to deny.

"Jaune, I know you're having a difficult time in class and that you're still not the strongest of fighters, so... I want to help you!"

"Wh-what?"

"We can train up here after class where no one can bother us!"

"You think I need help?"

Oh Jaune…

"N-no! No, that's not what I meant."

"But you just said it."

"Jaune, everybody needs a little push from time to time. It doesn't make you any different from the rest of us. You made it to Beacon! That speaks volumes of what you're capable of!"

"You're wrong. I-I don't belong here."

"That's a terrible thing to say! Of course you do!"

"No, I don't! Mors's friend is practically shouting now "I wasn't really accepted into Beacon..."

Oh shit.

Mors coils his arm back to knock Cardin out. But he can already see it's too late. The glint in CRDL leader's eyes tell Mors he's already knew what to do with this new leverage.

"You hurt me, and I'm gonna fucking tell Ozpin on that son of a bitch!" The boy whispers harshly, apparently still afraid of Mors, but is confident he's holding the handle now.

Mors mind goes into overdrive to think of a way to fix this situation. Intimidation is not gonna cut it anymore. He can try to take a humiliating picture of Cardin to counter-blackmail him, but the kid can very well pull a Kamikaze and Jaune's definitely going to suffer worse. He can only think of one solution, and he's going to have to wait till his two friends are gone.

"... I didn't go to combat school, I didn't pass any tests. I didn't earn my spot at this Academy! I lied! I got my hands on some fake transcripts, and I lied!"

"What? But... why?"

You can hear the devastation in Pyrrha's voice. Everyone in ALVMN knows she's pretty attached to Jaune, for whatever reasons. Maybe he was the first close friend she's ever had in a long while, they'd all heard about her life back in Mistral; maybe he treated her with earnesty and simplicity. And the girl is as honest as one can be, so she might've labeled her friend as the "good guy", with all that title entails. The fact that Jaune's cheated, especially on something she's clearly worked so hard to get so far, was pretty much a punch in the gut.

"Cause this is always what I've wanted to be! My father, my grandfather, and his father before him were all warriors! They were all heroes! I wanted to be one, too. I was just never good enough."

"Then let me help you!" Frustration starts to seep into PR's tone.

"I don't want help! I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero! I'm tired of being the lovable idiot, stuck in the tree while his friends fight for their lives! Don't you understand? If I can't do this on my own... then what good am I?"

"Jaune...I…"

"Just... leave me alone. Okay?"

Then there is silence, an oppressive silence that seems to stretch to eternity. Then Pyrrha speaks, struggling to keep her voice from breaking.

"If that's what you think is best..."

Shuffling feet, then the sound of the roof door groans to open and then softly closes. Mors hears Jaune sighs, and not long after, he too left.

"What a drama queen." Cardin chuckles from under Mors "Who would've thought, eh? A student forged his papers into Beacon! Ozpin's gonna fucking execute Jauney boy to cover up this embarassment." He glares at Mors "If you know what's good for your little lady there, you'll want to get off of me A fucking SAP"

When no response came, the boy makes an annoyed growls and squirms to get a better look at the ex-merc.

"Did you turn deaf shithead? GET THE FUCK O-"

Cardin quickly clamps up and swallows hard when he sees Mors pulls out Lepestok from under his pants leg. The knife speaks clearly about how Mors is intending to silent Cardin.

"W-w-wait! Did you lose your goddamn mind? This is Beacon! Ozpin and Glynda will never let you get away with it! My family is a noble line! They are gonna flay you alive if something happens to me!"

The boy's threats and rants do not register in Mors mind. He has no illusion about getting away with the deed. He stares at Lepestok and deliberates whether he's really going to kill this seventeen year old kid. Oh this is not even close to the worst he's done in the past, but Mors keeps thinking about how disappointed Professor Goodwitch is going to be with him. She's told him before she had reservations about inviting him here exactly because of this, but she's chose to look past that and believed he would not cause an incident. Now, he's about to throw that belief back at her face.

That woman has cried for him.

Mors sighs, sorry Jaune.

He sheaths his knife and stands up. Cardin bolts up and moves as far away as he can from his almost murderer. The kid massages his neck and pants heavily, but he knows he's gotten the upperhand, Mors won't kill him. Still, the ginger doesn't dare to provoke the former mercenary any further, so he sends all of his hatred at Mors with his black looks. Mors glances back for a moment, then without a word, he leaves.

What a shitshow.

 **A/N: There you go. Since I've received a comment on me being too slow on updates, I've decided to make the chapters a little bit longer, as compensation for keeping you wait. Graduate school's life just would not allow me too much time on writing this story ; _ ;**

 **Anyway, hope you enjoy. RnR!**


	22. Chapter 18: Worth

Mors finds Jaune at the combat arena, getting beat up by three training dummies. A glance was enough to know the bots were set to high difficulty. Perhaps the conversation with Pyrrha has left the blond feeling like he needed to prove himself, even if it was to no one in particular.

"Oof!" A relatively hard hit sends the knight sliding to the edge of the arena's ring. The bots, being on hard mode that they are, don't relent. Jaune barely has any time to bring his shield up before all three of his opponents jump in and pound away at him. The blond's Aura took much longer to fall into the red than one would normally expect, even with improper shielding, but it did eventually. The bots stopped unceremoniously.

"Good work. You're doing great. Keep up the training." Come three synthetic voices.

Mors decided it's a good time as any to sit down next to his battered friend, who glances at him and groans.

"Not you too… Look man, it's been a long and hard day, and I've just had a serious fallout with the nicest person on this planet. I have absolutely _zero_ energy left for these kind of talks, nil, zip, nadda. Can you just…leave me alone? Please?"

"...I've heard your conversation with Pyrrha."

"..." Jaune turns his face away from Mors.

"Cardin was there too."

The knight bolts up to look at Mors, completely terrified. Mors takes a deep breath.

"I was trying to convince him to drop his beef with you when you guys walked in… Actually I was beating him up…" He cringes at his friend's expression "Yeah that was why I made the stupid decision to stay silent and wait till you leave. The bomb was dropped too fast for me to knock Cardin out. So he heard, and I had no choice but letting him walk. I would've k-…I'm sorry dude."

Jaune stares at him for a while. Then, with resignation on his face, the guy plops back onto the floor.

"Can't seem to get mad at you, man. Couldn't even tell myself it was your fault. Prolly just my punishment from the universe for trying to be something I'm not meant to be, I dunno."

"Guess I'll pack my stuffs tonight." He mutters bitterly.

"I…don't think Cardin's going to tell on you." He shrugs at Jaune's glance of disbelief. "I…beat him up pretty bad. He's… afraid of me. If he tells, nothing's gonna hold me back from tearing that guy a new hole, so he's not gonna risk it without a good reason. He'll…prolly still blackmail you, though. He knows I can't get involved."

"Great…Instead of one big rip it's gonna be endless drag out pain." His blond friend groans again. "But I guess I should count my blessings. I'm still gonna be here apparently, though maybe I really shouldn't be…" His tone turns sullen "Here I am getting my bum saved again, getting babysat by you; if not, Pyrrha."

"I don't think I've saved you from anything. But hey, think of it as you owing me once. Save me when you get stronger and we're cool."

"...I know you're trying to cheer me up and all, but can you please not?" Jaune sits up and speaks, a little heat in his voice "You _know_ anything that's gonna give you trouble is sure as heck can't be handled by me! Don't patronize me!"

"I swear to you I wasn't. Look man," He sighs "Headmaster Ozpin's told me to not tell anyone, but since I know your secret…" Jaune looks away. "I don't have Aura, and I'll prolly never have one."

"...Excuse me?"

"I don't have Aura, can't."

"...You serious?! But isn't Tsvestok like…a ton? Literally? You're saying you're swinging it like a stick just by…"

"Muscles and bones, yeah."

"Monty Oum Mors, what did you do? A thousand pushups everyday? Drank protein shakes for water when you're thirsty? Got genetically enhanced by some sort of experiment in Atlas?...Are you actually an alien?"

"Something closer to the first one" He shakes his head at his friend's baffled expression. "Point is, I'm actually not very sturdy against us Huntsman's level of damage. Shit hit the fan, and I'll prolly be first blood. Believe me when I say you'll find me in a bad spot a _lot_ more than you might think." Mors pats Jaune's shoulder "And I'm counting on you to get me out, you're my leader now."

"...The scars…" The blond mutters and look at Mors, who shrugs "What have you been through, man?..." His lips slowly retract into a thin line as the reality of fighting Grimms without Aura sinks in, most likely thinking about what he would've been like if Pyrrha hadn't unlocked his Aura. "How many close calls have you had?"

"...Many."

"Sorry."

"Me too, friend." Mors cranes his neck to stare at the ceiling. "But well, I've gotten a team, two in fact, to look out for me now, so it's not so bad. You guys will be great huntsmen and huntresses, surpassing me one day, not too distant actually." Sounded a bit arrogant there, but somehow fake humility feels even more pompous. When Jaune remains silent, Mors looks at him. "That included you."

"Yeah right. Didn't you just beat Cardin up? You know I can't even touch his toe nail, right? How do you suppose _I_ 'surpass' you?"

"Trained by me and maybe Pyrrha. Dick move to her, by the way." Grimace. Ugh. "Come on dude, every Huntsman is trained by _someone_. What do you call what we're doing _here_ , at Beacon? Getting helped by more experienced Huntsmen, how's that different from what I and Pyrrha are offering? And what does doing this by yourself even mean anyway? Like do you wanna invent your own fighting methods or something?"

"I don't know! Okay? I don't know… All I know is everyone sees me as some bumbling loser you either pity or look down on. You know what the last letter my parents sent me said? That I don't have to try so hard, that it's okay if I wanna give up, pack up and go home. Even my mom and dad didn't feel like I can't handle this!" The blond angrily brushes his nose "I just…wanna prove it's not true, man. To myself, at least. That I can be a hero, too."

Mors swears the propaganda bullshiterries has hyped up this occupation _way_ too much. Here is a boy who is absolutely technologically gifted, a talent he thinks is much, much more constructive to society than being good at whacking something to death, and yet the guy keeps basing his worth over his fighting capability. Wasting a perfectly good talent in trade for another body to throw at an unrelenting enemy.

Such is the world they live in, he supposes, where there are monsters that can render everything you've achieved meaningless. What good is hacking some computers when the Grimms come and take away everything you have? Naturally, those who can oppose such an oppressive presence are object of idolization.

Well, who is he to reject a person's dream?

"I guess I get it. And self betterment is an admirable motivation, I suppose. But why does that equates to not receiving help from me or Pyrrha? It still needs _your_ effort and dedication to follow the training. There's not really a shortcut you know? No matter who or what you learn it from, fighting is something that takes either a very long time or very intense training to get good at. Talents can only help so much."

"You're behind with the people here, who's spent most of their lives training hard for combat. If you wanna catch up, you'll have to work thrice as hard as others. You'll basically can only get there on your own." He stands up, pats down his pants and holds out a hand for his leader. "No shame in receiving a few pointers along the way."

Jaune takes his hand and Mors pulls his buddy up. He's considering Mors' words. That's good. The big student pats the blond's head a few times then jerks his thumb towards the locker room.

"I brought my tools. Can you pull the schematic?"

"...Yeah…Man, I really should apologize to Pyrrha shouldn't I?"

"Yes, yes you should, you literally pulled a Weiss on her back there." Jaune screams into his hands. "And you know, she'll prolly forgive you with a smile _and_ apologize for something totally not her fault."

"Ey ey ey you're supposed to cheer me up, not making me feel like the worst human being in the universe!"

"Something in life you gotta protect at all costs, brother, like Pyrrha's heart of gold."

"...Yeah okay fair." First genuine laugh of the day. More of a faint chuckle but that's progress. Jaune falls silent for a couple of steps, he then asks, gingerly "So…You are not disappointed? That I cheated to get in here? Your team leader is a fraud?"

"Haven't my attitude so far clearly shown how much I care about that stuff and how disappointed I am?"

"Geez okay. Where do all these sasses come from? I get it." Jaune smiles lopsidedly and knocks on Mors's arm "Thanks man."

"Don't mention it." Mors grins back. They walk in silence, but it is much lighter now.

…

…

"You really think I can get better?"

"...Can you wake up at five tomorrow?"

-REST-

Jaune groggily, _unwillingly_ , wakes up to someone shaking him gently. He's vaguely aware that there's a reason he should prolly wake up this…Oum there hasn't even been daylight yet...early, but cannot for the life of him bring himself to care.

"I'm up…go away…be with you in ten minumhghb"

"Jaune…"

Pyrrha!? Jaune's eyes fling open and snap onto the crimsonette hunching by his bed, looking every bit miserable as he expected her to be. The girl is most definitely _not_ a morning person, though not for the lack of effort to go to bed early on her part. Pyrrha and morning just don't mix. It is prolly the Invincible Girl's only weakness.

And yet here she is, valiantly trying to fight back sleepiness. It's not really working, but still, A+ for effort.

"Pyrrha uh…maybe…you and I can have another training session in the evening? You don't _have_ to go with me and Mors now…"

"No no no I am…huuuuahh…alert. You don't have to worry about…huuuahh…me…huaaaap…" He can tell she's already warming up to his suggestion, if her glancing back at her bed means anything. "I promised I would train…huuuuhh…with you guys."

"Jaune and I are just gonna do some exercises in the morning" Jaune bit back a startled _manly_ yelp when Mors whisper talked out of the literal Void. The dude's all dressed up and ready to go. "The actual training should be done in the evening, when our strengths have recovered and everyone are fully awake."

The girl swats weakly at Mors's chest and grumbles incoherently.

"Alright…please huuuuurgh...moderate yourselves. I will huaaap…definitely be with you in the evening." With that, his partner staggers back to her calling nest, dead to the world as soon as she hits the mattress.

Pyrrha in the morning is one of team ALVMN's closely guarded secret wonders.

.

.

.

"So…what do we do, coach?" Jaune takes in a lungful of morning air as he asks his training buddy. Vale is well on its way into fall and the air is a bit chilly as a result. Mors is a bit underdressed for the temperature, but the dude _is_ from Atlas.

"We'll run around the campus for a few laps, do some push-ups, there're monkey bars for pull-ups over there...uh then sit-ups, then squat, let's see if you can do one legged squat with Aura, uh…pull-ups again then wall sit for a bit. Then we'll practice a bit with a training sword."

"Holy Oum man! I'm gonna be dead before breakfast!"

Mors scratches his head, looking a bit uncertain.

"You won't? You have quite a lot of Aura, so it will keep your body from breaking down." Well that's a comforting thought. "We'll go at a pace which the average people here will feel a bit strained to complete, which uh means you'll get pretty exhausted by the end. But once you recharge your Aura and it brings you back to normal, you'll actually get really noticeable results. It's part of the reason why Aura people are stronger than common folks, their trainings are more effective. Or so I gathered."

"Okay. Doesn't sound too exciting, but fair."

"Uh…Just so you don't feel like you're exercising without a purpose. I'll do a brief explanation. Uh…so…almost all of intensive physical activities require uses of the core muscles we're gonna cycle through today, especially those from your stomach down, which is your foundation. With strong foundation, even without skills, you are already pretty tough. As most of the forces we generate come from the ground."

Mors taps one feet onto the cobblestone

"Lots of people here didn't particularly work too hard on that though. I guess they usually trained the foundation to a certain standard, then focus more on honing a specialized skill, letting the rest just grow naturally with experience. It's less stressful, less risky and more motivational that way. Let's stretch while I continue."

And stretch they do. For a giant slab of a human, and all that claim about ultra dense bones and muscles. Mors is surprisingly flexible. Not Blake's level of flexibility but enough to make Jaune painfully aware of how stiff he is.

"Anywho, ghh…the running will serve two purposes: to raise your overall stamina and more importantly, letting you practice using the core muscles we're training. We won't go around an obstacle. Rather, try to climb, vault over, or leap over them. Getting used to using your body will help picking up and pulling off techniques a lot easier."

"Wait so we're doing Parkour?"

"There's a word for that?! I called it Running And Sometimes Overcoming Obstacles. RASOO for short…" Lord he pities whoever will be this guy's future children, if the mother won't interfere, the kids are going to be stuck with some horrible names for the rest of their life. "I didn't know! Okay? You can't fault a man for not being able to come up with cool names! Look, you understand what we're doing? Let's just get started okay?"

"Sure, let's do RASOO." Jaune snickers. He's _so_ gonna tell Ruby.

"Yeah…we'll see if that grin's gonna stay till halfway through today." Mors grumbles as he takes off towards the dock area. He moves fast, not so much that it's impossible to keep up with, but Jaune still has to pump his legs to maintain the distance.

Already, he knew he's gonna be a pile of heaving mess by the time they're done. He's made up his mind, though. He'll push through any kind of hellish training thrown at him to get stronger, to earn himself some worth as a Huntsman. He's prepared to push his body to its breaking point, then some more. That, is an Arc promise to himself.

.

.

.

It came sooner than he had expected.

True to Mors's words, Jaune started to feel exhausted shortly after they began, around the fourth lap. Jaune's Aura kicked in and did its best to fix him as he went on. _That_ sustained Jaune until halfway through the routine, in the middle of the sit-ups; at which point Jaune experienced his Aura broke for the first time. It was one of the most terrifying things to witness in this world, right up there with clowns and acid spewing alien. Instantly he was a thousand times weaker than _just_ a sneeze ago; or maybe it was more like all the strength he took for granted left all at once.

Yet Mors didn't let him stop. Not until he truly lost control of all of his muscles.

Jaune's lying on the stone pavement, stuck in an unresponsive body that only knows pain. Every inch of his body is screaming in protest. Occasionally, a part somewhere (he can't feel anything very well at this point) twitches involuntarily and he winces at the cramp. The knight feels incredibly sleepy, cobblestone is fine, he's gonna catch some Zs and be up before class…

"Hey, stay with me. Breathe." Mors squats down and pats gently on his chest, but in this state it might as well has been an elbow dive. Jaune sucks in a large gulp of air at the pain.

Oum he hates this orge of a dude so much right now! This is _wayyyy_ overkill for payback of him justly laughing at Mors poor naming sense. He makes sure his opinion of the guy known by sending the harshest glare he can muster at his tormentor.

It was swiftly ignored. Dammit!

"I'm clocking your Aura recovery rate so we can have a better sense of slotting time for morning exercise. If yours is a fast type, which I think you are, we can afford to start a bit later in the morning."

Jaune wanted to complain about Mors's definition of exercise, which is more like masochism in his dictionary, but it came out as disjointed gasps and gurgles. Nevertheless, the guy caught on, and even had the decency to look apologetic.

"It's tough, I know, I've been here. But this is how I trained to get this far, and I want to get you to be as physically strong as me, maybe even more with Aura. So…hang in there, okay? Aura is pretty amazing, you won't feel as bad by as soon as next week."

Of course, that they're gonna up the intensity the moment he's gotten used to this monstrosity was left unsaid. But he appreciates the effort to keep him motivated. It's okay, he was prepared for hell. Though he didn't expect hell to be so bad, but Jaune has made a promise.

That was why he wrestled with himself to stand up as soon as his Aura came back up and begin slowly fixing his body, nodding at Mors to continue. Fifteen minutes, faster than the average forty-five to an hour, nowhere as fast as Ruby's four, but also nowhere as fragile, according to Mors.

He has what Mors called a "Cat 4 Aura", which is supposedly really cool. Cat 5 being the Aura quality of legendary figures in history, good and bad.

All that good name couldn't keep him from being absolutely dead on his feet by the end of their routine, though. For the second time of the day, his 'top tier' Aura broke, again. Lord, he's gonna do this everyday! Jaune prays to Oum's Aspect of Will he won't have to go bald in exchange for power or something, but he _does_ feel like his hair is gonna fall out what's with this much exertion. The blond hastily runs his fingers through his hair and breaths a subtle when his hand came down free of any golden strand. Calm down my paranoid brain!

At least he gets to practice with sword now. That's ought to be a bit more exciting.

"Kay let's do some weapon training. Here." Mors throws him a plastic sword. Jaune catches it and stumbles at the thing's unexpected weight. This thing has to be at least three times as heavy as Crocea Mors! His overworked Aura once again rushes through his body to support the sword. He groans internally, workout isn't over, seems. Jaune sends questioning glances at his friend.

"So that sword is seven kilos (15.5 lbs), a bit heavier than your actual weapon. But the extra weights do serve a purpose. Two, actually. One is to work your sword swinging muscles. More importantly though, is that the small flaws in form can be emphasized to be apparent so we can hammer them out. Here, it'll be clearer once we get into practice."

Mors walks over and starts guiding Jaune into a stance, a pretty standard one he usually see in comics and movies.

"Feet apart…knees bent…one hand near pommel, one near guard…sword tip at throat level…Kay, you'll want to wind your sword back and cut down across like this." Mors makes a diagonal cutting motion from his right with his hand. "Then go back to neutral, then swing down from the other side, then vertically, then horizontally from right to left. Then we'll do them again but reversing the directions. That's uh…eight swings. After that, one handed stroke with each side. We'll get to stabbing once you get these twenty four basic sword swings down, which is a bit more complex."

"Dude...I'm like...really behind as it is. Do we _have_ to take baby steps like this? I mean, you're the coach but...I dunno… I think I can swing my sword pretty decently…"

"...I guess it does seem inefficient and boring with this method. But to tell you the truth, this and a little more is all the formal training I had received." Mors shrugs at his stares of disbelief "The rest of them are experiences, and I'm not sure how to teach you that. I can give you a few pointers, sure, but you gotta get the basics down first. Hey, don't make that face, you also got Pyrrha, remember? She'll take up the advanced parts. And really, don't underestimate the basics. Every fancy technique with a sword eventually boils down to some combination of these eight slashes and a few stabs. You can feint, you can block, you can parry, you can do twirls and stuff, but when you strike, you'll almost certainly use one of these basic strokes. I want you to practice until every offensive swing you make is executed in perfect form naturally and you can transition between them flowingly. That's basically half of fighting already."

"That's a lot of hype over swinging a sword?"

"One good hit is worth a thousand small cuts, man. You notice how Cardin tended to shrug off a lot of your attacks?" Jaune cringes at the mention of his tormentor. Oh yeah...he's prolly gonna get blackmailed today...joy. The reminder of his humiliating defeats at the other boy's hand doesn't exactly help him feel better, either. "Oops, sorry, dude." He shakes his head telling his friend to move on. Mors scratches his neck and falls silent for a few seconds. Seems he lost his momentum in talking.

"...Anyway, lemme show you what one good swing feels like." Mors gently takes Jaune's sword hands into one hand. "A good form strike is pretty heavy, more than you might think, as it comes from your entire body. You know how some people have seemingly heavier blows than normal? The heavy hands? They simply have good forms." Mors puts another hand onto his shoulder, again, softly. "Your opponent will usually has to deal with those kind of strikes; either parry, block, or dodge, which puts them on the defensive. If they just tank it, which is how it often goes with Grimms, they'll suffer pretty significant damage. And enough of those, and they're down." The bigger guy steps in close behind Jaune, _way_ too close. Mors's front is basically glued to Jaune's back, and he can feel the dude breathing down on his head, which is eerily faint. Now hold on...

"D-dude, I know you mean well and all, but uh...isn't this a bit uh...intimate?"

"...I'm flattered you feel that way about me Jaune but let's focus on training for now eh? We'll discuss our feelings for each other later, maybe behind the school's garden."

"Smarty pants."

"You made it weird first."

"...Okay fair." Jaune grumbly concedes. "Fine, do what you want with my body."

"Ugh. Where are all these sasses when you talk to literally anyone other than our team and Ruby?"

"L-low blow man! Being socially awkward has nothing to do with my charisma! Be-besides, hidden charms aren't meant for all to see!" Suddenly, he is aware of how they've been holding the weird position a _bit_ too long. "Forget all that. Just show me what you wanted to show!"

He can kinda feel Mors shrugs. "Kay. Lift your arms up here. Breath in." He complies. As he did, the other guy took a moment to adjust his wrists angle, something about blade alignment, then move that hand onto his other shoulder. "On three, tense your arms, slash down and breathe out as forcefully as you can. One. Two. Three."

A lot of things happened all at once on that third count, but for a split second Jaune can feel a…'flow'...of movements, of sort. Right before he counted three, Mors kneed Jaune's own knee joint on his back leg, making him instinctively pushed against the ground with said leg. As soon as he did that, with ridiculous strength, Mors pushed his entire body down, making him pushed even harder back. Then, as Jaune blew air out through his nose, he could feel his stomach tensed up, and some sort of…force…born from his leg shot to his torso. Then, with one hand pushing Jaune's sword side shoulder forward, and the other pulling the one on the opposite side back, Mors guided him through the swing. The sword crashed down like a meteorite, unleashing the unexpectedly tremendous force somehow built up in his body.

He heard the plastic sword literally _tore_ through the air as if it was going through thick liquid, not the air he hardly noticed was surrounding him everyday. He could _feel_ how powerful that single strike was; maybe it was the slight gust of air rushing in to fill the vacuum in the sword's path that gave him that feeling, he doesn't know, this is some next level stuff. Jaune stares at the sword in his hands, not having moved from the pose he made at the end of his…'true strike'.

He didn't know he could make such a violent motion.

"Pretty cool, right? Gonna take a while before you can get the hang of it tho, prolly. It's gonna be a bit of a grind, but it'll make learning advanced stuff much easier."

Jaune nods with a purpose. He can kinda see it, how he can get stronger. If he thinks about it, the things Mors has taught him were so obvious it was weird he couldn't come up with it himself: Just exercise and practice. It was how Mors was so confident with his method, and the intensity he'd never imagined of how it was carried out that gave him a sense of direction, the Fraud Student supposes...Actually, the most important thing he has gotten today is the mindset. He's been thinking like a normal human. While in fact, he should have been thinking like a superhuman, what Huntsmen are.

With the excitement he felt back when he first got his Aura unlocked, Jaune eagerly tries to redo the beautiful sword strike he did earlier. Of course, he is careful to follow the same steps as Mors has shown. Inhale foot, abs, exhale, shoulder, **arms**!

"YAH!"

And it was the return of Jaune the Wimp.

 **A/N**

 **To Guest: I'm not sure how much stronger is 4 times normal human his size...But I'll say Mors is pretty strong, on par with Yang and maybe even more. Think of him as a glass cannon that keeps shooting even as it's breaking apart.**

 **RnR~**


End file.
